


stay, stay, stay

by deanpendragon



Series: campfire in your chest [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Best Friends, Companion Piece, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8262047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanpendragon/pseuds/deanpendragon
Summary: Every story is actually two stories, and now Hinata and Kageyama get to tell theirs.a campfire in your chest companion piece.





	1. heart lines

**Author's Note:**

> guys. GUYS. so beyond stoked to publish this little nugget of campfire-y goodness. if i could, i'd gift this to every single person who read campfire in your chest, every single person who talked to me about it, every single person who drew art for it and left a comment or dropped me a kudos or a thoughtful message on my tumblr. i finished campfire practically six months ago and i'm still reeling from the reception it got.
> 
> that being said, i strongly recommend to read cfiyc first. aaaAaAAaaanyways, “every story is two stories; the one on the surface and the one bubbling beneath. the climax is when they collide.” -grace paley
> 
> happy, happy, happy reading!

Kageyama Tobio is afraid of the dark.

Hinata is endlessly amused by this for a number of reasons, and Hinata knows a few things about being afraid: roller coasters, Tsukishima when they first met, horror flicks, final exams, even Kageyama himself—they’ve all gotten his heart thumping, hard and rapid and in total terror.

Except lately, Kageyama has Hinata’s heart doing star jumps in his chest for _other_ reasons. He’d like to ignore them but they settle so nicely in his chest, cradled right up against his heart like it would just be too messy to try and dig them out. Hinata can’t be bothered. And besides,the reasons are soft around the edges. They’re buoyant and abstract.

They are rose-colored and reflect the blush on Hinata’s cheeks when Kageyama stares at him a little too long or changes clothes in front of him in flagrant disregard of the way it makes so many flowers bloom in Hinata’s chest he feels he could cough them up. At least if he were to do that, it’d keep him from blurting things he probably shouldn’t.

Things like, “If you’re so scared, why don’t you come in my bed with me?”

“Are you being serious?” Kageyama asks from the floor.

There’s an unmistakeable pause. The words hang loftily in the air, and it’s not like Hinata can just reach out and take them back. He stares at the single string of moonlight that sneaks through a crack in the blinds and projects across his bedroom ceiling. His eyes follow it up and down and up and down and up and down before he thinks of something to say back.

“Yeah, maybe. I mean, since there’s no bassinet in here for you.”

“No _what_?”

Hinata lifts himself up on his elbows and peers over the edge of the bed.

“A bassinet?” he repeats. “You know, the frilly little sleeping things you keep newborns in?”

“Right,” says Kageyama.

“Get it? ‘Cause you’re a big baby.”

“Dumbass!” roars Kageyama and then repeats himself softer when Hinata shushes him, “Dumbass. I’m not a baby. And I don’t need a bass—a bass—one of those baby things. Why do you even know what that is?”

“I have a little sister, _duh_.”

“Can’t you just turn a light on or something?”

“You know how my mom is about that. Not my fault you forgot your nightlight.”

“I hate when you call it that.”

“That’s what it is, though.”

Kageyama sighs and shuffles around on the futon. A few seconds pass and he abandons it to climb onto the bed, not even giving Hinata a chance to make room for him before he tosses his pillow into place next to Hinata’s head and settles in. The way he curves his body brings their faces insanely close.

Kageyama looks somehow _softer_ when he’s up close like this, like Hinata could press his fingertips into his cheeks and their indents would linger after he’d pulled them away.

“It’s better up here,” mumbles Kageyama, business-like.

He bumps his left knee against Hinata’s when he shifts, and Hinata thinks it’s accidental until Kageyama doesn’t shift back. Hinata shuffles until their other knees touch, too. He beams into the dark of his room when Kageyama doesn’t recoil.

“Yep, no need to worry about monsters up here,” Hinata lilts, “‘cause I’m so tough and I’m so strong. I’d spike a volleyball to their wart-covered faces before they could even go, ‘boo’! Right, Kageyama?”

“Ghosts say ‘boo’.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s exclusive to ghosts, you know?”

“I guess not,” Kageyama decides through a yawn.

“What do ghosts and monsters want with people in the dark, anyway? Everyone is just sleeping,” Hinata muses thoughtfully, “and that’s so boring.”

Kageyama snickers, his breath warm on Hinata’s face.

“Not everyone.”

“You’re so immature, Kageyama.”

“Whatever. Go to sleep.”

Hinata ignores him. “What other things do people do in the dark? They tell scary stories. And make candle lanterns.”

“They stargaze,” contributes Kageyama, “and they kiss.”

Hinata considers this with a furrowed brow. Sure, people kiss in the dark, but people kiss a lot in the light too. Probably more so, even. Hinata’s not positive and he’s unsure if there are any kinds of statistics for something like that, but maybe he should make a mental note to ask Tsukishima. And even if there _are_ , what would Kageyama know about it? 

“They kiss?” mimics Hinata.

There’s a scratchy sound as Kageyama nods against his pillow. Hinata inhales, deep and slow. He counts down from three and does not think.

He barely has to lean in at all to kiss Kageyama, then, bringing their mouths together in an odd, stiff press. He almost misses—it’s dark and Kageyama’s in mid-nod—but it’s definitely a kiss. And Kageyama stays.

There’s even a soft sound as Hinata pulls back, one he’s heard in movies and things but never thought would ring through the dark of his bedroom directly after bickering about bassinets and commonly used phrases of ghosts-versus-monsters.

_Typical,_ thinks Hinata.

“Like that?” he asks.

Kageyama clears his throat. 

“Uh. Yeah,” he answers shortly.

So it’s like that, then.

___________

  
Even if Karasuno’s three incoming first-years aren’t incredible, they are pretty enthusiastic. Tsukishima openly complains about their lack of height, Ennoshita seems impartial and Nishinoya doesn’t buy any of them ice cream like he had for Hinata last year. But they’re nice enough.

_Maybe even too nice_ , Hinata decides as he watches the tallest of them stick to Kageyama’s side all throughout practice like some kind of blond tumor. Hinata can’t help his disgruntled scoff.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re about to shit a brick!” roars Tanaka.

Nishinoya zooms over to join them, slinging his arm around Hinata’s shoulders and slapping his palm on his chest. He follows Hinata’s stare to where the first-year buzzes around the perimeter of Kageyama’s personal space. 

“He’s pretty good, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Hinata grumbles, “I guess so.”

“He’s no prodigy like you and Kageyama, but there’s promise there,” comments Tanaka, “and just the fact that he’s trying to practice with _Kageyama_ of all people shows at least some kind of dedication to the team, you know?”

“Totally,” snickers Nishinoya.

Hinata rolls his eyes so hard he’s afraid they’ll pop out and roll across the shiny gym floor.

_Right_ , he thinks snidely, _the team._

_________

  
“The team of _one_ ,” he rants on the walk home, “the team of _Kageyama,_ maybe.”

“Hinata, he’s probably just—”

“Damn him and his blond hair. He probably washes it every single day.”

“What’re you even talking about?”

“Sorry,” Hinata sighs, “he just bothers me, is all.”

Yamaguchi frowns at him. He bumps their shoulders together reassuringly.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he insists.

Tsukishima stands beside him, an apple with a single bite taken out of it clutched in his pale hand. 

“Yeah,” he drones, “we’ll all be dead from radiation poisoning at the end of the world before Kageyama finds a person actually willing to be around him for more than a few minutes at a time.”

“Tsukki, oh my god,” snorts Yamaguchi.

Hinata sighs again. 

___________

  
Hinata rolls his bike between them when he and Kageyama walk together. It’s kind of a hassle and it takes him four times longer to get to where he’s going but he never really minds. He isn’t sure when that started; isn’t sure exactly when _go, go, go_ became _stay, stay, stay._

“I don’t think they mind.”

Hinata gapes. “You really don’t?”

“No. I bet they just get used to it. Like when girls wear necklaces.”

Hinata hums thoughtfully. The zipper of his jacket clinks against the bike’s metal handlebars as they walk and Kageyama stares straight ahead as he always does. There’s a wonderful metaphor there that Hinata can’t quite piece together.

“Hey, Kageyama?”

“What?”

“What do you think of the new first-years?”

Kageyama shrugs and says, “Not a lot.”

“You don’t think a lot about anything, do you?” Hinata asks with legitimate curiosity. “Food doesn’t count.”

Kageyama’s sidelong glance is quick and subtle and right at him, and Hinata wonders what it means.

The gears of his bike cease their ticking when he and Kageyama come to where the road splits. Hinata’s eyes slide up the incline of the path that winds easily over the snowcapped mountain. When he turns back, Kageyama’s staring. The deep orange of the late afternoon sun spills generously into the cool blue of his eyes and Hinata figures the result creates a whole new color altogether, something impressive and formidable.

It’s unfair that Kageyama is the only one Hinata knows who has blue eyes while Kageyama could name any number of people with the same brown eyes as him. Hinata’s thrown back into the moment at hand when Kageyama blinks at him.

“What?” Kageyama grunts.

“What, what?” asks Hinata.

“You were staring at me.”

“You were staring at me first!”

“I was not!”

“Were too!”

A silent, stubborn moment passes. Hinata kicks at the bike’s front tire with the toe of his sneaker.

“I just—I, uh, I don’t know anyone who has blue eyes. Other than you, I mean.”

“Oh,” replies Kageyama.

“And tons of people have eyes like mine.”

“Oh,” he says again.

“They’re brown,” Hinata informs lamely.

“Yeah.”

“Like poop.”

Kageyama bristles. “Not like poop, stupid.”

“Yeah, huh.”

“Can’t you think of anything nicer to say about them?”

“Can _you?”_ Hinata challenges.

After a second, Kageyama scoffs and turns from him.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he declares stuffily. “What’s it to you?”

Hinata blinks. “I don’t know.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay then,” he parrots.

He climbs atop his bike and tightens his hands around the cool metal of its handlebars.

“What if I were to say something nice about them?”

Hinata stills. He has to twist awkwardly to look back at Kageyama, blushing red under the sunset. Kageyama shifts in place and stares squarely at the ground beneath his feet. Hinata cocks his head. He pulls in calm, icy breaths from the winter air between them.

“Well,” he says slowly, “I guess it’d make me happy.”

Kageyama stares harder.

He tells the ground after much deliberation, “Then maybe I will. Sometime.”

Hinata _beams_ , bright and toothy and resolute.

“Okay,” he chirps in reply.

The kickstand retracts with a mighty _clank._ He shows off his smile to Kageyama once more before his exuberance and adrenaline carry him easily up the mountain, frigid air freezing the teeth that peek through his smile.

___________

  
to: yama tadashi

subject: ???

_do you think dogs hate having to wear collars???_

 

from: yama tadashi

subject: Re:???

_omg i hope not_

 

from: yama tadashi

subject: Re:???

_that would be soooo tragic i don't even wanna think about it : <_

___________

  
to: stingyshima

subject: ???

_do you think dogs get annoyed having to wear collars all the time??_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:???

_Go to bed_

___________

  
to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)

subject: kenmaaAAAAAA

_do you think dogs ever get annoyed by their collars?? do you think they even notice??_

 

from: KENMA (^oᴥo^)

subject: Re:kenmaaAAAAAA

_Here shouyou. Read_ [ _this_](https://www.quora.com/They-sniff-the-collar-and-sometimes-even-lick-it-Why-are-dogs-so-bedazzled-when-you-take-their-collars-off) _. I don’t think they notice?_

_________ 

  
Most things between Hinata and Kageyama seem coincidental. Whether this is actually the case or not, they seem to be situational and occur only through mere happenstance. It’s something that Hinata is aware of but isn’t really sure if he approves.

Sometimes he feels like things happen between them before he even notices. He feels he could blink and miss them. It makes him wonder just how many things between himself and Kageyama he’s missed. He should pay more attention.

Sometimes he thinks he wants something like what Yamaguchi and Tsukishima pretend not to have: something certain and unavoidable; something they can’t ignore. It’s like the stars in both their eyes gleam so brightly as to blind them from the shine in one another’s. It’s like not realizing the house they’re in is on fire simply because they refuse to look up from the floorboards. It’s tragic, it’s alive, and it’s unstoppable. Hinata’s pretty certain that’s what Yamaguchi and Tsukishima have, and sometimes he thinks he wants something like that, too.

But then he and Kageyama’s hands brush as they walk and Hinata scoops Kageyama’s into his, lacing their fingers together, and Kageyama doesn’t say a word. He just blushes and blushes and blushes _._ It’s entirely too cute on someone like Kageyama. When Hinata mentions this, he shoves him with his free hand and blushes some more.

At once, Hinata realizes that what the two of them have is pretty great, too.

___________

  
“Kageyama-san, will you give me some tosses?”

Hinata immediately turns at the statement and squints across the gym. Yushin shifts from foot to foot in front of Kageyama, a volleyball clutched tightly to his chest. A fist closes tight around Hinata’s gut.

“Fine,” says Kageyama after a short pause.

Yushin beams. “Great! I’ll do my best, okay?”

“Okay. Tell me when you’re ready.”

“Ready when you are, Kageyama-senpai!”

There’s a quick flash of color on Kageyama’s face at the honorific and Hinata wants to dig a hole into the gym floor and crawl inside because that’s _his_ blush, it’s the blush that should be reserved for only _him_ , and while he’s at it, Hinata thinks he’ll take ownership of all Kageyama’s tosses, too. Hinata only realizes he’s been grumbling aloud when Tsukishima makes an amused sound at his side.

“He’s a setter,” says Tsukishima, “that’s what he does.”

Hinata whines, “I know, I _know_ , it’s just.”

There’s a bloated pause in which Hinata grabs at his hair and pulls it in frustration.

“Do you have a follow-up?” Tsukishima asks, blond brows furrowed.

“No! I want to die!”

“Relax. It will be fine.”

“How can you just _say_ that?”

Tsukishima shrugs. A bead of sweat runs down his temple, over the band of his sports glasses. 

“I just know,” he says.

“How?” demands Hinata. “How do you know, though?”

“Because I’m smarter than you.”

There’s a sharp _smack_ as Yushin spikes a perfect toss, so loud and piercing that Yamaguchi flinches and screws up the serve he attempts on the other side of the net. Hinata watches Kageyama look proudly down at his hands.

The ball bounces and rolls across the glossy gym floor. It stills right at Tsukishima’s feet.

“Tsukishima-san, could you throw that here?” calls Yushin.

Tsukishima looks down at the ball with disinterest, looks at Yushin, and promptly walks away. It’s so absurd that Hinata just _laughs_ , snorting into his hand and trying to pass it off as a cough. Tsukishima only responds when he’s clear across the gym.

“Sorry,” he says, “what was that?”

“Asshole,” Kageyama insists.

“Takes one to know one.”

Yushin stands idly by, head turning from Kageyama to Tsukishima as they go back and forth.

“Hinata-san,” he shouts once Ennoshita’s told them both to cool it, “could you pass me that?”

Hinata does. But only because he just doesn’t have it in him to not be nice—probably wouldn’t even _want_ to be mean if he could—but he figures that if he did, he could always ask Tsukishima for some pointers.

___________

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: :O

_kageyama can you come over do you wanna sleep at my house natsu n mom are making MOCHI yum_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_I’m going to Shikama in the morning idiot. I told you that_

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_fine whatever i didn’t wanna hang out anyways_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_Yeah you do_

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_yeah maybe.….yamaguchi will sleep over then_

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_and we’ll talk trash about you the WHOLE TIME_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_Just come over when I get back tomorrow_

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_fine_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_Fine_

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_fine!!!!_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_Fine_

 

to: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_FINE_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Re::O

_Will you save me some mochi_

___________

  
Despite his incessant button mashing, Hinata can’t seem to best Yamaguchi at any video game they play together. Yamaguchi is sprawled out on the floor next to him, controller clutched in his freckled hands, making cheerful noises as he laps Hinata once again.

“Can’t you go easy on me?” Hinata whines.

“I am, silly. It’s because you always choose that baby stroller cart thing.”

“Because it looks the funniest.”

“It totally does,” Yamaguchi agrees. “Tsukki hates that one so much.”

Hinata snickers because this is precisely the reason he started choosing that particular cart in the first place. After that, it just stuck. He groans as Peach annihilates him with a bomb, flinging his stroller straight off the cliffside and into the ocean.

“Sorry,” lilts Yamaguchi.

“Hey,” Hinata says, setting his controller on the floor in front of him. “What do you think about that thing Tsukishima said earlier? When we were at the park?“

Yamaguchi sets down his controller too, despite being only a little ways from the checkered finish line. He looks entirely thoughtful. Hinata contributes it to the fact that Tsukishima’s name has been brought up—Yamaguchi’s attention is pulled immediately to it, eyes soft and shiny. Hinata watches as Donkey Kong whizzes by Yamaguchi’s cart and nabs first place.

“How do you rebuild a dam you’ve willingly broken?” Yamaguchi recalls.

He pulls his knees to his chest. Hinata mirrors him.

“Yeah,” he answers. “That.”

“What do _I_ think about it?” Yamaguchi asks.

Hinata nods. He sees Yamaguchi whipping out a sledgehammer and busting up the walls between himself and Tsukishima, a trademark grin on his freckled face that makes color bloom over Tsukishima’s cheeks (he probably thinks he’s completely subtle about it, and Hinata doesn’t have the heart or the guts to tell Tsukishima otherwise).

Hinata watches it play out easily in his head, all cinematic and symbolic—Yamaguchi breaks the dam between him and Tsukishima to pieces, puffs of debris from cracked cement and limestone blanketing their clothes. Love rushes in like water and fills them both to the brim. _The dam be damned_ , Hinata thinks amusedly.

He imagines himself in the very same situation, but unlike his friends, he’s swept up in the undertow. He wonders if Kageyama would swim after him, his stare sharp with focus, eyes azure like the water Hinata heaves into his lungs. He blinks back to reality when Yamaguchi lets out a sigh.

“I think there’s no point in trying to rebuild something you once wanted to tear down, you know? Once it’s broken, it’s broken. Tsukki’s right,” Yamaguchi insists proudly. “All you do at that point is try to move past it.”

All this symbolism hurts Hinata’s brain.

“So Kageyama and I can’t be only friends from now on?” he asks bluntly.

Yamaguchi makes an amused sound, his grin reaching his copper eyes.

“I think you guys can be whatever you want to be,” he answers.

Hinata loves how positive the statement sounds, and it lights him up from the inside out. It must be contagious because Yamaguchi brightens too, his grin elevating to a full-fledged beam. They both turn their attention to the television as the unfinished game honks impatiently at them.

“Did you mean what you said when you told me and Tsukki you didn’t want to rebuild it?” Yamaguchi wonders. “Your guys’ dam, I mean?”

Hinata nods with confidence.

“I just wish Yushin would back off,” he grumbles.

“He’s harmless,” insists Yamaguchi, his tone sympathetic. But Hinata stays skeptical.

He shoves his controller to the side and stretches his legs out in front of him. He eyes a hole near the toe of his sock and wonders how on Earth he’d managed it. 

“Um,” he says quietly, “Yamaguchi?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you and Tsukishima can be whatever you want to be, too.”

Yamaguchi’s resulting blush is sudden and fierce. Hinata almost feels bad for inducing it. Yamaguchi raises his hand to rub the back of his neck, his gaze stuck to the carpet between where he and Hinata sit.

“There’s, um,” he struggles, “there’s a lot of moving pieces there. The more pieces to the puzzle, the more difficult it is to put together, you know, Shouyou?”

Hinata does not. He nods anyway. There’s a long, pensive moment between them.

“But, for what it’s worth,” Yamaguchi tells him with a grin, “I think so, too.”

________

  
Hinata does his best to walk between Kageyama and Yushin when the first-year insists on joining them on their way home after practice, but even his best efforts fall short. Yushin always finds a way to switch up their order—he stops to tie his shoe and then magically appears at Kageyama’s side, he gets closer in an attempt to better hear Kageyama’s answer to a question he asks about technique or tempo, and loads of other bullshit Hinata can’t even remember.

What he _does_ remember is his own distaste, the ugly feeling in his stomach each time Kageyama’s attention is pulled so easily away from himself. He doesn’t know why Yushin bothers; as tall as they are, he and Kageyama can talk right over Hinata’s head with ease. The whole thing ruffles Hinata’s proverbial feathers.

“I’m trying to find a glow in the dark volleyball.”

“Oh?” Yushin chirps. “Like the one we talked about at Ennoshita-san’s place?”

“Yeah.”

“That would be _so cool_ , Kageyama-senpai,” he fawns.

Hinata squints down at the pavement although he wholeheartedly agrees. _It wouldn’t just be cool_ , thinks Hinata, _it would change_ everything. They could forget about Kageyama’s mother ushering them in from the net in Kageyama’s backyard in the evenings because she’s concerned that the ball will smack one or both of them upside the head. Their days and nights could be nonstop cycles of volleyball. _Nonstop cycles!_ thinks Hinata with glee.

“What’s so funny?” grunts Kageyama.

Hinata tears his eyes from the road to look up at him. The last vestiges of light from the setting sun do that thing where the warm color spills into the cool blue of Kageyama’s eyes again, and Hinata looks away to hide an unwelcome blush.

“Just thinking about nonstop volleyball,” he replies.

“Oh,” says Kageyama, his tone light. “Yeah.”

________

  
“I’m so envious of your success line,” Yachi tells him, Hinata’s hand cradled in her own. She peers down at his palm and says, “It’s so apparent, Hinata, you’re _definitely_ going to be successful.”

“You will too, Yachi-san!” Hinata ensures her.

Yachi looks doubtful. She lays her palm over his and points to one of the many lines that traverse it with her pinky. Hinata has to squint to see.

“Look at mine compared to yours. It’s barely there! Oh my god,” she frets, “I’m never gonna make it.”

Hinata pokes at a deep line that crosses the top half of Yachi’s palm.

He asks, “What’s this one?”

Yachi looks to the side for a second as if shuffling through her recently-acquired palm reading knowledge in some sort of filing cabinet in her mind. She blinks and turns back to him, bright-eyed, impeccable blond hair framing her round face.

“It’s my heart line,” she answers.

“The heart line!” repeats Hinata. “It’s real deep, isn’t it, Yachi-san?”

She cocks her head and squints down at it.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” she replies proudly.

“Success is nothing. Heart’s what really matters, right?”

“I guess you’re right,” she replies thoughtfully. “I never really thought about it.”

They beam at each other, overlaying palms still hovering in the space between them.

“Oi, Hinata, are you ready to—oh.”

Kageyama abandons his question and stands wordlessly in the open doorway of the gym, staring between Hinata and Yachi. He adjusts his grip on the strap of his volleyball bag, slung heavily over his shoulder.

“Yep,” answers Hinata, grabbing his own bag from the floor. “We’ll see you later, Yachi-san!”

He returns her wave and rushes to follow a silent Kageyama out of the gym.

________

  
“Slow down, would you? You’re walking too far ahead of me. Like a duck mom.”

Kageyama turns over his shoulder but doesn’t slow his steps.

“A _duck mom?”_ he reiterates.

“Yeah, you know,” says Hinata, “how the mother duck always walks ahead of her little ducklings?”

“You’re just mad because I’m faster than you. And I’m not your duck mom.”

Hinata instantly regrets forgoing his bike today. He skips to catch up to him, pulling his winter jacket tighter around himself to fend off the chill in the air. Once he’s at Kageyama’s side, he sticks his tongue out at him. Kageyama glowers back and Hinata makes a thoughtful sound.

“Yeah, you’re _definitely_ no duck mom. Moms are nurturing and nice—two things you have exactly zero capacity for in all six feet of your angry body.”

“Shut up,” growls Kageyama. “I can be nice.”

“Doubt it,” Hinata replies airily.

“I can.”

“Prove it, Kageyama.”

Kageyama spins on his heel and states, “Your hair looks even _oranger_ under the sunset.”

There’s a beat before Hinata snorts a laugh. Kageyama’s face ignites.

“I’m not sure if that counts as nice,” Hinata tells him, pulling a strand of orange hair from his bangs between his thumb and forefinger. “And I don’t think _oranger_ is a word. But I’m not actually sure. We should ask Tsukishima.”

Kageyama bristles. Inexplicably colder than usual, he spins around and stomps off again.

“Wait!” Hinata calls after him. “Gimme your hand.”

Kageyama stops. “What?”

“Your hand. Let me see it.”

Hinata catches up to him and watches with glee as a blush— _his_ blush, Hinata emphasizes internally—blooms across Kageyama’s pinched face. His features soften when Hinata snatches his hand from his side. He turns it over and holds it steady, his thumb and middle finger curling loosely around Kageyama’s wrist.

Hinata pokes at Kageyama’s palm with his pinky, like Yachi had.

“Just like I figured,” he announces.

“What?” asks Kageyama, decidedly curious.

“Your heart line.”

“What about it?”

“It’s not there, because you don’t have one.”

Kageyama twists his face up and rips his hand from Hinata’s grip. Hinata laughs and laughs and laughs, only relenting when Kageyama turns and stalks off once more. He thinks that if people ever give out awards for storming off, Kageyama deserves _all_ of them. Hinata catches up to him easily this time.

“Kageyama, I’m joking! I don’t _really_ know anything about palm reading.”

There’s a short silence in which Hinata thinks Kageyama won’t respond at all.

“Then where’d you learn that?” he responds finally.

“Yachi,” Hinata chirps. “It’s her new thing. She was reading mine earlier. It’s actually pretty awesome.”

Kageyama gives him a sideways glance as they walk.

“She read yours?” he wonders.

Hinata blinks. “Duh. You were there. Er, you walked in, I mean.”

Kageyama finally, _finally_ slows his steps. Hinata’s skips turn sluggish in an attempt to accommodate the new, unhurried pace.

“I didn’t know that’s what that was,” huffs Kageyama, eyes trained downward.

“What’d you think,” Hinata snorts, “that we were holding hands or something?”

Kageyama trudges on. He doesn’t answer. Hinata stops and stares.

“Oh my god. You _did_ think that, didn’t you?”

Kageyama stops too, a few paces ahead of him, and turns to level Hinata with a look.

“Maybe,” he mutters.

Hinata cocks his head and asks, “You got jealous?”

It comes out way more incredulous than he means it to be, and Kageyama’s face flushes in a way that tells Hinata _yes, definitely, I was one-hundred percent jealous, so do not do that again_. Hinata grins toothily at him—he can’t help it, can’t help but want to make Kageyama’s blush deepen until his entire face resembles a ripe summer raspberry.

Hinata thinks it’s incredible, in a way, how quick Kageyama is to acknowledge his own jealousy while he can be so utterly obtuse about Hinata’s own. Hinata doesn’t dwell on it. He focuses on what’s in front of him now: Kageyama stands in the middle of the road, somehow concurrently expelling both bitterness and relief.

It really shouldn’t be this cute. Hinata _knows_ this. But he goes to him anyway, returning to Kageyama’s side and tugging playfully at the scarf around his neck. Kageyama peers down at him, his gaze much warmer than before. _To hell with this winter jacket_ , thinks Hinata as he idly fiddles with its zipper, _just stare at me some more._ He spends the next ten minutes itching to reach out.

But it’s Kageyama who finally interlaces their fingers, hands hanging heavy between them as they walk. Their palms press together and Hinata wonders if their heart lines press together, too, and if they do, he hopes they stay connected even when their hands fall back to their sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are some serious types of magic, let me tell you.
> 
> <3


	2. marshmallow peeps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this would've been up earlier but i've been sick OTL
> 
> there's a scene in here that also happens in campfire. i'm trying not to overlap a lot but this was one of my favorites, it's from the end of chapter 7 if you wanna go reread that first (same dialogue of course, just very different prose). i think it's pretty neat, at least. anyway i love you!!!!!!
> 
> happy, happy, happy reading!

from: yama tadashi

subject: ..///

_can you meet me super early before school tomorrow?? like at sakano or smth  
_  

 

from: yama tadashi

subject: ..///

_hinata i think the worst thing in the world just happened to me._

___________

  
If Hinata had to list his least favorite things in order from bad to worse, they would be as follows: scary movies, snakes, upset stomachs, studying, and when Yamaguchi cries.

They loop around the back of Sakanoshita, behind which is what looks like a failed garden. Sparkles of frost adorn the thin vines and tiny leaves, kicked up and scattering as Yamaguchi and Hinata invade the quaint space. They sit in the dirt and wiry foliage, backs pressed to the building’s exterior. And Yamaguchi cries.

He drops his forehead onto Hinata’s shoulder and shakes. Hinata wishes so badly that it had anything to do with the sharp winter air. He doesn’t push him to explain. Instead, he watches the sun slide up the sky, pale and unhurried. He presses a supportive palm between Yamaguchi’s shoulder-blades.

Words spill from him quicker than Hinata can tear his eyes from the horizon.

“He’s rebuilding it,” Yamaguchi warbles, fingers clenched in the fabric of Hinata’s sleeve. “Hinata, he wants to rebuild it.”

Gears click and whir in Hinata’s head. 

“Yamaguchi, what happened?”

“Kissed him,” Yamaguchi mumbles.

_The dam_ , Hinata realizes at once. His head feels full of scribbles. He tries to sort his thoughts but can’t, mouth scrunched in confusion because he was _so sure_ for _so long_ that this would be a happy thing. Yamaguchi looks just as lost as Hinata feels, knees bent to his chest, the chestnut hair that frames his face stuck to his wet cheeks. Hot tears trail over his freckles as he pulls back from Hinata’s shoulder.

“You guys—you guys kissed?” Hinata implores gently. “That’s—”

_Great_. _That’s great_ , he wants to say, except it obviously isn’t. His reply hangs in the frozen air.

“He was right there,” Yamaguchi insists. “We were _right there_.”

Grief weighs heavy in Hinata’s chest. It settles uncomfortably and he shifts in place in an attempt to knock it loose.

“Yamaguchi, I’m—I’m _so_ sorry, I—I don’t think anything I could say would be big enough.”

Hinata vows to himself that he’ll think all morning, all afternoon, all day and night to come up with the words because Yamaguchi deserves them. Because Hinata thinks that Yamaguchi damn near deserves the world and because even if Tsukishima doesn’t think so, Yamaguchi can at least sleep sound knowing that Hinata does.

Yamaguchi pulls his sleeves over his palms. He sniffles even as he blots the tears from his flushed face. Hinata helps. He presses his sleeve to Yamaguchi’s face too, dabbing at the places he misses. That at least makes Yamaguchi laugh, voice still tight and quivering. The minutes of silence that pass are companionable. Yamaguchi lets his head rest heavily on Hinata’s shoulder once more and in return, Hinata tips his head to rest on Yamaguchi’s. The early morning chill pinks the very tips of their noses.

“Did he say why?” Hinata wonders, quiet and slow as if not to disturb the air around them.

“Said we’re friends. But we kissed. It was _everything_ and he—he liked it, too.”

_Yeah_ , thinks Hinata _, sounds about right._ Yamaguchi pulls his head from Hinata’s shoulder and buries his face in his hands.

“He got hard,” Yamaguchi mumbles into his palms. “I can’t forget that.”

Hinata blanches. He has no basis for this sort of thing; _nothing_ like it has ever happened with him and Kageyama, nothing even close to it, but something zings through Hinata’s stomach when he thinks about it. Stubborn as ever, he passes it off as a cold chill. At his side, Yamaguchi sighs. His hands drop into his lap.

“I guess even I don’t get Tsukki sometimes,” Yamaguchi admits, wincing like it hurts him to do so.

They pull in deep, unsatisfying breaths of winter air. Frozen leaves crunch noisily beneath their feet when they finally stand from the cold dirt. Yamaguchi wavers and Hinata envelops him in the biggest hug he can muster.

“It will be okay, Yamaguchi,” he swears, “you and Tsukishima will be just fine.”

Yamaguchi rests his chin atop Hinata’s head and sighs. His shoulders sag.

“It won’t change, though. I know it won’t.”

“Tsukishima won’t change his mind?” Hinata wonders.

“I meant me. It won’t—I won’t change how I feel. About Tsukki.”

He sounds so resolute that Hinata doesn’t dare argue with him. Yamaguchi steps back from him then, and pale morning light overtakes what remains of the flush on his face. With a ruffle to Hinata’s mess of orange hair, Yamaguchi finally lets himself grin. It’s small and a little pitiful, but it’s good enough for Hinata. He grins back.

“Tsukki’ll be at my house soon.”

“You’re going to go meet him?” Hinata asks incredulously.

Yamaguchi nods. Hinata bites the inside of his cheek.

_But we’re already halfway to school_ , he wants to say. _But it’s so cold out. But you’ll just have to immediately come back this way and then walk all the way there._

But Hinata already knows that Yamaguchi doesn’t care about these things. What he does care about is Tsukishima, tall and brooding and slathering adhesives between bricks so he can slap them together and rebuild what Yamaguchi says they’ve already torn down. Another ruffle to Hinata’s hair and Yamaguchi turns and makes his way back home, puffs of hot breath visible as they leave him and shift through the frigid morning air.

Hinata pulls his bike up to rest against Sakanoshita’s only table and plops down on the bench to wait for Kageyama. Pulling his jacket tightly around himself, he wonders what on earth Tsukishima could possibly be thinking. He doesn’t even know where to start.

Because if there was one single thing Hinata thought he understood about Tsukishima, it was how he felt about Yamaguchi.

___________

  
A familiar black cat weaves through Hinata’s legs as he walks. He treads carefully, scared to death he’ll catch its tail underfoot and end up with scratches covering every inch below his knee. At his side, Kageyama taps mercilessly at his phone; an old, rickety flip phone that makes Tsukishima’s look like some kind of futuristic apparatus from centuries beyond.

“Seriously, do you even get reception on that thing?” he implores.

“Shut up,” snarls Kageyama.

Tsukishima goes on, “I kind of feel bad for it.”

“You do kind of abuse it, Kageyama,” Hinata agrees.

Kageyama turns to him, the light of the phone screen casting a pale blue over his gloomy frown.

“Just whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yamaguchi’s,” Hinata decides after a short pause.

Kageyama turns his attention back to his phone. Hinata spins around to give Yamaguchi an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“He can toss to you from now on, then,” grumbles Kageyama.

“Okay. Yamaguchi, can you give me some tosses?”

“Yamaguchi’s not a setter!” Kageyama barks back. “No offense, Yamaguchi.”

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi share an amused look. The cat finally abandons the four of them, trotting back toward Sakanoshita with a departing mewl.

“None taken, Kageyama,” Yamaguchi insists.

Hinata hums. “You can set with your floaty serves, right? Just serve them at me and I’ll hit them back.”

“No, he can’t,” Tsukishima drones with a roll of his eyes, “and you can’t hit them back. That’s the entire point of his jump float serves.”

“Thanks, Tsukki!”

Hinata scouts the two of them for something out of the ordinary—awkwardness, distance, whatever—but everything between them is as usual. Even Tsukishima’s Yamaguchi-induced blush is the same as it always is. Hinata wonders if he’d even know anything had happened at all if Yamaguchi hadn’t told him. But then, maybe they just bury it. Hinata doesn’t think he could be strong like that in the face of something so frustrating. Admiration twinges in his chest. He finally turns away when Tsukishima quirks a disapproving eyebrow at him.

“Who are you texting, anyway?” Hinata asks Kageyama.

“Not texting,” Kageyama answers distractedly. “Internet.”

“That thing has the _internet?”_

“Tsukishima, I swear to god.”

Hinata shifts closer. “What’re you looking up?”

“Still trying to find glow in the dark volleyballs.”

“What,” he snorts, “are you gonna buy one for Yushin or something?”

Kageyama just shrugs. Hinata shifts away again to hide the way his face falls.

_It’s bad enough you guys see each other at practice as much as you do,_ he thinks, _and now you want to hang out with him at night?_

Kageyama says people kiss at night. There’s no way Hinata can let him get those volleyballs now. Not when he knows it could lead to Yushin and Kageyama _kissing_ , maybe in Kageyama’s backyard where Hinata spends most of his weeknights or on the walk back from evening practice when Hinata’s already halfway home on his bike or any number of kissable circumstances Hinata’s brain chooses to present him with, all within a terrible thirteen second time frame. He feels heavy.

He has an overwhelming urge to grab Kageyama’s phone and chuck it into a river.

Only then he couldn’t text him three A.M. thoughts or turtle pictures or forward him the online quizzes Lev sends him with titles like _What Snack Food Are You?_ (he and Kageyama both got _Marshmallow Peeps,_ a result with which Hinata was utterly delighted).

So Hinata spares Kageyama’s phone for now. But he’s not happy about it.

__________  
_  

“Yushin wants to go into town on Saturday.”

Hinata blinks. Kageyama blinks back at him.

“But—I promised I’d help with Natsu’s costume all afternoon. Her play is on Sunday, remember?”

“Oh. Right,” says Kageyama.

“So you guys are going to go? Taking the train and everything? Together?”

Hinata blushes at his sudden and fervent rambling. He tries to reel his reactions in, to appear _casual_ , to seem distracted with unsticking his backpack’s zipper from where it’s snagged on its track. He looks up when Kageyama shrugs.

“I guess so,” he answers.

_This day officially sucks,_ thinks Hinata, instantly deflating. _First morning practice was cancelled, then I forget my phone at home, then my zipper gets stuck,_ he lists, _then I fail my math quiz, oh my god, Yachi’s going to be so disappointed, and now Kageyama’s going on train dates with other guys. Guys I hate. Oh, and now my stomach hurts._

Hinata is completely over it.

“Fine,” he huffs, “whatever. Go be best friends with him. Go do everything together.”

He tries to sulk away but Kageyama stays right at his side, following him out of his classroom and down the hall in the direction of the volleyball gym. Before they make it to the doors, Kageyama cuts him off. He steps in front of him and Hinata nearly slams face-first into his chest.

“What are you even talking about, dumbass?” he asks, eyebrows pinched together.

“Nothing. Move, Kageyama.”

“No. And you’re the one who’s always telling me to be more social. I’m just doing what you say.”

“ _Social_ means with, like, a bunch of different people, stupid. Not just Yushin.”

Hinata tries to step around him but Kageyama beats him to it.

“What’s the big deal? And why the hell would I be best friends with him? I barely even like him.”

“Yeah, but you _will,_ ” Hinata insists hotly, “you _will_ and then where am I?”

He feels the crazy blush on his face, feels the way his chest clenches in their silence. Students wind around where the two of them stand obtrusively in the middle of the hallway. Kageyama’s gaze is heavy on him, Hinata feels the weight of it, but he can’t tear his eyes from the checkered tile underfoot. Since Kageyama won’t let him through, he spins on his heel and goes the other way.

“Go on to practice,” Hinata tells him. “I have to do something first.”

He doesn’t, of course, unless that something involves standing around the corner at the opposite end of the hallway until Kageyama leaves. He’s going to cry. He feels it in the tightness of his chest and throat, the endless twirl of his stomach. He drags himself outside.  _If I know it’s going to happen_ , he thinks as he makes his way up the stairs, _why can’t I stop it?_

The clubroom is empty. His sound of relief turns into a whimper. And then another, and then another as Hinata slips his bag off his shoulder and joins it on the floor. He doesn’t get a minute to himself before he hears the door unlatch. _Yamaguchi or Noya-san_ , he wishes instantly.

He turns around to see Tsukishima staring owlishly down at him.

“Hey,” he greets with uncertainty.

“Stingyshima,” Hinata manages.

One sniffle and Tsukishima looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the known universe. Hinata doesn’t blame him. He finds himself on the floor again, waiting for Tsukishima to leave while simultaneously yearning for his company (he can’t be mad at Tsukishima, whether it’s for his own reasons or Yamaguchi’s. Tsukishima is like some kind of puzzle to which Hinata won’t ever, ever have all the pieces. And if he did, he wouldn’t know the first damn thing to do with them).

“Want me to get Yamaguchi?” Tsukishima offers.

“No, no. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

He grants Hinata a resounding sigh and comes to occupy the spot next to him on the cool tiled floor. Relief expels from him so suddenly that he’s sure Tsukishima sees it wafting off him in waves, distorting the surrounding air like summer heat off asphalt. There’s a stagnant moment. Hinata disturbs it with a loud sniffle.

“Yushin pisses me off,” he complains.

“Me too.”

Hinata realizes at once that with the warm, walking-on-air feelings Kageyama gives him, he also gets the chilled, swimming-with-concrete-slippers ones. He lets his head fall onto Tsukishima’s shoulder. Tears slide across his face in new patterns.

“I like him so much, Tsukishima.”

“I know,” Tsukishima replies resolutely.

“He likes me too, I think.”

“I know,” he says again.

Hinata wipes his sleeve over his cheeks. There aren’t many things that can make him feel like this, Hinata knows. He hopes Kageyama realizes his influence.

“So then why am I crying?” he asks.

Tsukishima doesn’t have an answer for him. He just stares back at Hinata, golden eyes flecked with something akin to sympathy. Maybe empathy, even. But Hinata figures he’s just grasping at straws. 

“I wonder if I would still feel this way if I hadn’t kissed him,” he mumbles.

Tsukishima’s response is abrupt. “Don’t wonder about that. You’ll never know.”

“I guess so,” Hinata concedes.

The subsequent pang of sympathy in Hinata’s chest is for Tsukishima and Yamaguchi. He stops feeling sorry for himself just long enough to feel sorry for them, to wish that they figure it all out because he doesn’t want either of them to ever feel this way. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi can just leave the sinking feelings to Hinata. He’ll shoulder the weight for them. He should’ve expected it, really. He should’ve known he’d be finished the very second his heart beat fast for _Kageyama_ of all people.

“Why’d it have to be him?” he wonders.

“I’m sure a lot of people wonder that about who they love,” says Tsukishima.

Hinata blanches. His heart makes itself known in an instant, drumming noisily in his ears.

“Love?” he repeats.

With the word, he turns his wide-eyed stare on Tsukishima who merely shrugs.

“Or, you know,” Tsukishima says and shrugs again, “whatever.”

Hinata latches onto the word: _whatever_. He is very comfortable with _whatever_. He thinks it very much describes what he and Kageyama have—a very sturdy _whatever_. _Whatever_ and Hinata are real close, whereas he and _love_ are merely acquaintances, if even that. Hinata thinks he’s seen love in pictures.

“Oh,” he replies finally. “Yeah, maybe they do.”

“Besides, it’s not like you’d rather it be someone else,” Tsukishima adds, voice just quiet enough to be called soft.

“How do you know?”

Hinata’s reply sounds petulant even in his own ears. Tsukishima levels him with a look.

“Because I’m not blind,” he answers. “Or stupid.”

Hinata gives him that. He rests his head on Tsukishima’s shoulder for a bit longer because he’s sure Tsukishima will never allow it again. He has to soak up every bit of Tsukishima’s tolerance while he can, like a dish sponge or one of those fish that attaches itself to the bellies of bigger, stronger fish. Hinata absently wonders if there’s an even bigger fish to help Tsukishima, because even people like him need a little help sometimes.

“Sorry. I know this kind of stuff weirds you out,” Hinata tells him.

Beneath his temple, Tsukishima shifts. “What stuff?”

“Y’know, like, actual human feelings.”

“Shut up.”

His tone is light, harmless, and for the first time, Hinata feels the warmth from Tsukishima that Yamaguchi swears by time and time again.

“Yamaguchi was right,” he admits. “You’re not terrible to talk to about stuff.”

“Don’t make it a habit.”

“Jerk,” Hinata retorts airily.

The club room door swings open without warning and they both blink against the sudden invasion of sunlight. Kageyama stands in the open doorway, backlit by pale yellow and despite everything, he looks handsome and maybe even a little ethereal. Hinata finally picks his head up from Tsukishima’s shoulder.

“Oi, Hin—what the hell?”

At Hinata’s side, Tsukishima cringes. Kageyama’s voice is way too imposing in the still room. The profound atmosphere shatters and Hinata slowly stands, wiping his sleeve over his face once more.

“Chill out, Bakageyama. We’re coming.”

“What was that, dumbass?”

He comes to stand in front of Kageyama. His azure eyes sparkle even in the absence of direct sunlight. Hinata thinks it’s pretty unfair. Hinata thinks a _lot_ of things are pretty unfair. He follows Kageyama out when Tsukishima waves them on.

“Nothing,” Hinata answers belatedly, closing the door behind him.

The metal stairs rattle underfoot as he and Kageyama descend them. When they reach the ground, Kageyama slows to walk alongside him. Hinata turns to him, backlit by the sun again, to find Kageyama already staring.

“Since when are you and Tsukishima all close and cuddly?” he implores.

He wants some petulant reply, something quick, something jovial or teasing that he can brush off. But Hinata doesn’t give him this; he just shrugs, turning from him to stare straight ahead. Hinata asks himself again, _why him?_

And still, even as Kageyama is silent at his side, he stands tall—present and palpable and preposterous and peculiar and _phenomenal_ —and Hinata’s brain doesn’t take a moment longer than necessary to remind him, _oh, that’s why._

___________

  
Their walk home in the evening goes quickly with neither of them dragging their feet to add more time for pointless conversation. Hinata’s bike clicks along between them as usual. They steer it together, his hand on the left handlebar while Kageyama grips the right. Their fingers are pale around the cool metal. Neither of them let go to put on their mittens. Kageyama probably just figures Hinata’s forgotten his, anyway.

Hinata stays at Kageyama’s side past the fork in the road. He stays until they’ve reached Kageyama’s front porch, trying to make up for lack of conversation with proximity. It doesn’t work. He still feels weird and scooped out, unwilling to alleviate the prickly atmosphere between them since Kageyama won’t either. Hinata sighs. He watches his breath scatter and dissipate in the air. This time of year, Kageyama’s giant front yard is void of the insect cacophony it boasts throughout the other seasons. The only sound is the frost crunching under Kageyama’s shoes as he turns to face him.

“Still want me to come to Natsu’s play on Sunday?”

Hinata nods, face half-buried in his scarf. “If you want to.”

“Why would I not want to?” Kageyama asks.

Hinata shrugs. Kageyama’s perpetual frown deepens. If possible, Hinata feels like he’s been scooped out even further. He balances his bike against his hip, keeping one cold hand wrapped weakly around its handlebars as he shoves the other in his pocket.

Kageyama sighs. He turns toward his house, takes one step away, and turns back.

Hinata watches him step closer, closer, closer until he’s right in front of him. Without warning, Kageyama stoops low and wraps himself around Hinata’s waist, heaving him from the ground with ease.

“Kageyama!” Hinata gasps, handlebars ripped neatly from his grasp.

His bike clatters to the pavement. Kageyama takes no notice. He only presses his face more firmly into Hinata’s soft middle, Hinata blushing fiercely where Kageyama holds him a good few feet above him. His hands come to rest on Kageyama’s head. _For balance_ , he tells himself even as he notes how silky Kageyama’s hair feels beneath his fingers. The faint, distant light from Kageyama’s porch shines easily from the jet black strands.

He makes a soft sound as Kageyama hoists him a bit higher. Through both his jacket and his shirt, Hinata feels each deep, warm breath Kageyama exhales on his stomach. A compulsory shiver rattles through him. Hinata’s hands fall to the sides of Kageyama’s face. He pushes Kageyama’s hair back, his fingers curling softly over the shells of his ears. Kageyama pushes another hot breath through the fabrics over Hinata’s stomach. He clenches his arms tighter around his waist. _So strong_ , Hinata acknowledges, a cozy warmth settling over every inch of him, inside and out. 

It’s with care that Kageyama finally sets him on his feet again. Hinata grins up at him—he looks different, sort of funny almost, his ears poking from his head without the locks of hair Hinata had tucked behind to hide them. He forgets to laugh when he refocuses on Kageyama’s face.

Kageyama grins at him, soft and easy. Hinata’s heart erupts in his chest.

_Oh_ , he thinks for the second time tonight, _that’s why_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //shoves [this art](http://dandelionmeadow.tumblr.com/post/142902841595/yamaguchi-was-right-he-mutters-youre-not) in your face that was drawn for the same scene in campfire, and [this one](http://roostergrin.tumblr.com/post/153974439254/if-yall-havent-read-deanpendragons-campfire-in) too//


	3. pink paper hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you haven't listened to stay stay stay by taylor swift yet please do that 
> 
> happy, happy reading!!

The next few days that they pass Sakanoshita, Hinata thinks of the ruined garden behind it.

“What?” Kageyama grunts, following his gaze. “You want something from there?”

“No,” Hinata answers although his stomach growls at the prospect. “I was just thinking about Yamaguchi. And Tsukishima. You know, their whole...thing.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Kageyama grumbles.

Hinata bristles. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. You just get upset when you do. That’s all.”

“I get upset when Yamaguchi’s upset,” Hinata insists with a shrug. “I’m allowed to be upset when one of my best friends is upset, aren’t I? Kageyama, he cried. Tsukishima told him they were _only_ _friends_ and I—I felt like I couldn’t help at all.”

“I’d be crying too if that asshole was my best friend.”

“Come on,” Hinata reprimands. “Tsukishima’s fine.”

Kageyama adopts a sudden scowl.

“Wait. I thought I was your best friend.”

“You’re my best friend, too, Kageyama! It’s just, well, me and you—um.”

_We're more than that,_ Hinata finishes. His cheeks ignite. Next to him, Kageyama stares.

“What?” he prompts.

“It’s just different,” Hinata decides, too embarrassed to admit it out loud.

And to Kageyama’s _face_ of all places, especially when it isn’t pinched up with needless irritation but just blank, stoic almost, bathed in pale morning sunshine that peeks over the main building as they enter school grounds. A classmate pats Hinata’s shoulder in passing and Kageyama turns over his shoulder to watch them disappear into the string of migrating students.

“You’re my best friend, Yamaguchi’s your best friend and Tsukishima’s his best friend. Great,” Kageyama deadpans.

“Oh my god, would you stop pouting?”

“I’m not pouting.”

“You’re totally pouting, Kageyama!” Nishinoya chirps as he zooms by them in the hallway.

“Is Nishinoya-san your best friend, too?” Kageyama drones. “Better go catch up with him.”

“You’re being stupid.”

“Whatever.”

Hinata pulls at his sleeve and Kageyama stops. They stand on the walkway to the volleyball gym, midway between its doors and the school’s hallway. Hinata swallows a deep breath.

“You’re more than a best friend, stupid,” he tells Kageyama, adding the insult at the last moment to alleviate the gravity of his admission. “And if you ever tell me that we’re _just friends_ or _just best friends_ or _only friends_ or whatever, I will seriously kick your ass.”

Kageyama blinks down at him and Hinata reaches up and slaps his palms to Kageyama’s cheeks. Kageyama just lets him. Hinata holds his face in his hands and matches his stare, azure eyes wide with a soft kind of focus. Bits of tired conversation float outside through the nearby hallway doors. Hinata grins up at him and feels Kageyama’s resulting blush rather than sees it, hidden beneath his hands and warm on the skin of his palms.

There are few things Hinata takes more pride in than having Kageyama at a loss for words.

________

  
Hinata relishes the squeak of rubber soles on glossy hardwood. His favorite color is the warm honey of the gym floor, nearly orange with the way the fluorescents overhead complement the natural light that shines through frosted second-level windows in the afternoons.

Between spikes, Hinata notices things he hasn’t before: the curve of Kageyama’s spine, the way his dark hair tapers off in a point at the nape of his neck, the dip in his lower back as he stands with his hands on his hips and glows from Ennoshita’s praises.

“But set to the first-years too, please,” he finishes.

“Yeah,” chirps Nishinoya over their captain’s shoulder, “no playing favorites!”

“I’m not. Hinata is just the most proficient.”

Hinata beams and pokes Kageyama in the back of the head.

“Was that a compliment?” he asks.

“You know what _proficient_ means?” supplements Tsukishima.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi scolds, urging both him and Hinata to the other side of the gym. He pats Hinata’s head and insists, “Hinata, try and receive my serve. It’ll be good practice for jump floaters on other teams.”

Hinata zips under the net and plants his feet.

“Tsukishima,” he calls, “will you buy me pork buns if I get one?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just ice cream, then.”

Tsukishima squints. “It’s winter.”

“It’s not even _that_ cold out anymore,” Hinata argues.

“Still.”

“Still not as cold as your heart!”

“That may be,” drones Tsukishima.

Yamaguchi shakes his head, volleyball propped readily on his fingertips.

“No. You’re warm. Tsukki is warm,” he promises.

Uproar across the gym pulls the three second-years attention. Yushin hops in place, a sharp _slap_ echoing as he and Kageyama high-five with both hands in celebration of a strong spike. Hinata’s eyes flit between the places where their palms come together. He turns back to Yamaguchi and readies himself once more.

“Bring it.”

________

  
Hinata pesters Kageyama later on, the word _favorite_  still chiming in his ears.

“Playing favorites, huh?” he recalls.

Kageyama takes a ginormous bite of a rice ball and speaks with his mouth full.

Hinata translates it into: “I have no idea what he meant.”

“You have no idea about anything, do you?”

“Shut up," growls Kageyama.

“You can’t tell your favorite to shut up.”

“Yeah, huh,” Kageyama retorts, flicking grains of wayward rice from the front of his coat. “Tsukishima used to do it to Yamaguchi all the time.”

Across the table, Tsukishima bristles. He drums his long fingers on the table and they draw Yamaguchi’s attention where he sits at Tsukishima’s side, face drawn into an expression Hinata can’t place.

“Used to,” Tsukishima emphasizes.

“That’s what I said,” replies Kageyama.

Hinata looks between the two of them and swiftly changes the subject.

“So you admit it,” he chirps, “I am your favorite, Kageyama!”

Tsukishima raises an eyebrow like he wants to say _duh._ Hinata wishes he would so he could watch his favorite blush bloom over Kageyama’s stoic face, pink and pretty and profuse like cherry blossom petals in the spring.

___________

  
Kageyama has alarmingly good posture.

It accentuates the impressive span of his shoulders, the flatness of his stomach and draws Hinata’s eyes straight to that same dip in his lower back he can’t seem to ignore anymore. He keeps his gaze focused just there— _just there_ —and not any lower because he doesn’t really want to look at Kageyama’s butt, although he does, so Hinata figures that he doesn’t _want_ to want to look at Kageyama’s butt. _Kageyama isn’t staring at my butt_ , he rationalizes, _so why should I stare at his?_

So he stares at the curve of Kageyama’s lower back instead. It’s not too noticeable with the way his shirts fall over his midsection, so Hinata pays special attention to when Kageyama isn’t hindered by pesky clothing. Kageyama pulls his jersey over his head and Hinata turns to him without missing a beat. He’s starting to think he’s got a sixth sense for this sort of thing.

Tanaka’s voice booms through the tiny club room. He rants something about _Volleyball Monthly_ , Hinata thinks, but he can’t be positive. He’s transfixed. A pair of dimples glare from the lowest part of Kageyama’s back, half-hidden by the black band of his uniform shorts. Hinata cocks his head and observes the shift of his muscles as Kageyama twists over his shoulder to address something Kinoshita asks.

A sharp elbow is thrown into his side. Hinata sputters and whips around to face Yamaguchi.

“You’re staring,” Yamaguchi whispers.

Hinata waves him off. “Oh, yeah. I know.”

Kageyama slips his arms into his t-shirt. He halts before he pulls it over his head, apparently sensing Hinata where he’s stepped to his side. Hinata reaches around and presses his hand to the dip of Kageyama’s lower back. His palm fits so nicely in the spot, the heat of Kageyama’s skin transferring to Hinata’s own. Kageyama turns. He peers down at Hinata’s outstretched arm, expressionless. 

“Just what the hell are you doing, dumbass?”

“What?” Hinata barks, instantly defensive. “It’s a, uh—a nice spot.”

Kageyama turns further and Hinata’s wrist incidentally settles against Kageyama’s hip. Hinata takes in a breath. His pulse point rests over where Kageyama’s hipbone juts out _just so_ , warm skin pulled tautly over it, shades darker than Hinata’s own.

_Too much_ , Hinata acknowledges.

Color floods into his cheeks so rapidly that he swears he hears it gush. He pulls his hand back to his side, turns to the shelves and zips his bag with gusto. Kageyama stares at him, still void of an expression, head tilted and arms still shoved through the sleeves of his t-shirt. 

“Put your shirt on already, would you?” Hinata mutters.

Nishinoya pokes his head into the room.

“Aren’t you guys coming?” he asks. “Pork buns! Tsukishima’s buying!”

“Am not,” is the distant reply, complete with the addition of a condescending, “ _senpai_.”

Hinata slings his bag over his shoulder and marches to the door to follow after him.

“Hinata,” Kageyama says, almost-but-not-quite a question.

The gentleness of it is almost too hard to ignore. Somehow, Hinata manages it.

________

  
from: kageyama tobio

subject: Hey

_What did you mean by a nice spot_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Hey

_Hinata_

 

from: kageyama tobio

subject: Hey

_I know your not asleep_

________

  
“Do you think Yamaguchi’ll take the vice captain position?”

Nishinoya asks this and scarfs down half of his popsicle in one bite. Hinata shudders—he’d tried to match him on that last year and Sugawara had to piggyback him all the way to the gym. Hinata admires Nishinoya for more reasons than he can count, one of them being his perseverance in craving flavored ice regardless of the season. Hinata switches his popsicle to his other hand.

“I think so,” he answers.

“Yeah?”

“He seemed kind of on the fence when he told me, but I don’t think he’ll pass up something like that. He’d be _so_ good at it, you know?” Hinata gushes.

Nishinoya nods with enthusiasm. He kicks a rock and it skitters across the pavement and into the frosty grass.

“What about you, Shouyou?”

“What?”

“Would you’ve liked to be vice captain?”

Hinata turns to him as they walk. Only Nishinoya’s sprig of honey-colored hair peeks out from the hat tucked down over his ears. Nishinoya kicks at another pebble and looks up to return Hinata’s thoughtful stare.

“Nah,” Hinata decides. “Too much thinking.”

“You shouldn’t sell yourself short,” Nishinoya reprimands, though it’s lighthearted.

“Was that a short joke?”

“Coming from _me_? Was _that_ a joke?”

Hinata cackles and Nishinoya beams, the pale light of early afternoon illuminating their faces. Try as he might, Nishinoya only marginally distracts Hinata from what swirls his mind. He thinks that Kageyama and Yushin are probably walking around the downtown shops together _right now_ , joking and talking and planning on sitting real close to each other on the train home. 

Maybe Yushin will come back to Kageyama’s house and sit on the same side of the couch that Hinata always does. Maybe Kageyama’s mom will dote on Yushin like she dotes on him. Maybe Yushin and Kageyama will talk about _tall people things_ that Kageyama can't talk about with Hinata. The possibilities are terrible and endless.

He blinks back to reality when Nishinoya pokes his cheek.

“What’s that scowl for?”

“Yushin and Kageyama,” Hinata answers him.

“What, you’re mad ‘cause he tosses to him now, too? But you still get the majority of them.”

“Noya-san,” he says, “do you really think Yushin and I are alike?”

Nishinoya pauses. He pulls his hat further over his ears, takes the final bite of his popsicle and nods. 

“In a lot of ways, yeah,” he replies. “Why?”

Hinata forgets to answer, frantically fitting together a mental list of his own traits. Nishinoya watches him quizzically. Hinata doesn’t even notice when Nishinoya slips the popsicle from his hand and finishes it, too. _If Kageyama likes me_ , Hinata thinks, _what’s to stop him from liking Yushin for the same reasons?_

“Don’t worry, Shouyou,” Nishinoya hollers, slinging an arm around his shoulders, “Kageyama and me still love you best! No doubt about that!”

Hinata walks him to Asahi’s apartment at the base of the mountain like he does sometimes. He thinks Nishinoya’s lucky to have him so close, unsure of what he himself will do if any of his friends move far away after graduating. He hastily pushes the thought out of his mind.

Hinata only stays for a little while before he ambles home, realizing that it’s infinitely harder to distract himself without Nishinoya at his side.

________

  
Natsu buzzes around him, her little finger pointing this way and that while Hinata tries to keep up. She wants this bead _here_ and this glitter _there_ —no, wait, over _here_ —but Hinata can’t knock her for her excitement. It’s contagious, actually, and by late afternoon he’s practically vibrating as he peels shimmery stickers from their sheets and slaps them where his sister instructs.

When there’s a knock on the front door, Hinata is appalled that he has to stop to answer it.

“I’ll get it!” insists Natsu.

“Okay,” says Hinata. He brushes glitter from his shirt and then stands up, realizing, “Hey, you’re not allowed to get the door! Move back.”

“It’s just Tobio,” she grumbles.

Hinata cocks his head. “Kageyama?”

Natsu mirrors him. “You know more than one?”

“No,” Hinata decides. “Wait, how do you know it’s him?”

“He knocks the same way every time,” Natsu claims.

“Natsu, why do you know that?”

She shrugs. There’s another bout of knocks and Hinata carefully winds his way around cardboard and beads and tinsel and pipe cleaners to get to the door. He swings it open to reveal Kageyama, eyes blue-beyond-blue and hands buried deep in his jacket pockets.

“Hey,” he says uncertainly.

Natsu pushes past Hinata to beam up at him, hands clasped behind her back.

“Hi!” she chirps.

Hinata leaves them to it and finds his way back to the only clear spot on the living room floor. He sits against the couch and shuffles through the stack of construction paper in search of baby pink, deftly ignoring the way Kageyama talks to his sister—the way Kageyama _always_ talks to her—all gentle and soft and patient.

“I’m a snowflake, the _brightest_ snowflake of the whole bunch,” Natsu brags. She sweeps her arm over her glittering loot and says, “Mommy got me and Shouyou all this stuff for my costume. You can help if you want.”

“I can?” implores Kageyama.

“Of course!”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I’m picking out my glitters right now.”

Natsu zooms across the room in a pattern that doesn’t disturb the mounds of miscellaneous art supplies and plops down. She hums to herself, pleased with Kageyama’s company as she pours piles of glitter onto separate sheets of printer paper. Kageyama hovers in front of the door.

“You’re not using those, are you?” he asks of the scissors Hinata picks up.

Hinata rolls his eyes. “No. I was going to eat them.”

“You know you’re terrible with scissors.”

“Do I know that?”

“Here,” says Kageyama. “Let me do it.”

“Good luck finding a place to sit.”

Kageyama considers the clutter for a second, then shuffles as close to Hinata as he can get and just _looms_.

“Scoot up a little,” he says.

“Why?”

“I was going to sit behind you. Scoot.”

Hinata is skeptical but does it anyway, shoving Natsu’s supplies forward and shifting to the spot they occupied. He only gets what Kageyama means when he arranges himself at his back and sits—literally _right_ at Hinata’s back—with his legs stretched on either side of him. Kageyama reaches around him and wrestles the scissors from his grip. From Hinata’s other hand, he plucks the sheet of construction paper. His chest brushes Hinata’s back as he settles in.

“What am I cutting here?”

Hinata stares at his own hovering hands for a second before he lets them fall into his lap.

“Hello?” says Kageyama. “What am I supposed to be cutting?”

“Hearts,” Hinata and Natsu answer in unison.

“Okay. Watch how much better mine will be than yours, Hinata.”

Hinata scoffs impassively. It’s hard to stay pissed at him when Kageyama’s so close and comfortable like this. He gives up, settling himself where Kageyama has trapped him in the V of his legs. Kageyama only halts for a second before he starts up again and with his final cut, the pink paper heart flutters from the page. It lands on Hinata’s ankle.

“It’s pretty good,” Hinata compliments.

“You think so?” Kageyama mumbles back.

“Yep.”

Equipped with Hinata’s praise, Kageyama lifts the scissors to the paper and cuts more. Hinata wants to sulk. He really, really does, but Kageyama is warm and concentrated and cool where he leans over Hinata’s shoulder. Hinata takes a deep breath. He lets it out.

He asks, “Did you have fun downtown?”  
  
“Didn’t go,” Kageyama answers, distracted.

Another paper heart drops onto the carpet.

Hinata turns and gapes. “ _What?”_

“What?”

“You didn’t go?”

“I texted you,” Kageyama answers plainly.

“My phone’s buried under all this stuff!”

“Oh. I thought you were avoiding me.”

“So you just…came over?”

“I figured you couldn’t avoid me if I was here.”

“Kageyama, oh my god.”

Kageyama turns to scowl at him and accidentally cuts a jagged line through his next paper heart. Hinata just grins.

“Why didn’t you go?”

When Kageyama shrugs, his chest shifts against Hinata’s back.

“I don’t know. Just didn’t feel like it. And you weren’t going, so.”

Kageyama leaves it at that. He abandons the imperfect heart and turns the construction paper to start on a fresh edge. Hinata wants to join in Natsu’s annoying humming from across the room and maybe toss a handful of her glitter into the air in celebration. He sags against Kageyama’s chest.

Hinata thinks that if his sister weren’t here, he’d kiss him.

“What do hearts have to do with snowflakes, anyway?” Kageyama wonders.

“I have no idea,” Hinata answers. “I just do what she tells me.”

“Teacher told me I get to decorate my costume any way I want to,” Natsu declares proudly.

“Good enough for me,” says Kageyama.

“Me too,” Hinata agrees and points to an untouched package of pipe cleaners. “Grab those, Kageyama. Let’s make more hearts with them.”

“Why do I have to grab them?”

_So you’ll press more into my back_ , Hinata doesn’t say.

“Because you’re the arms of this operation now. See?” He wiggles his arms around limply. “Mine are useless.”

“Everything about you is useless.”

“Shut up. Grab the pipe cleaners.”

Kageyama smirks over his shoulder and does as he says.

“Hey, Kageyama?”

“What?”

“We should always sit like this.”

“Okay.”

________

  
to: stingyshima

subject: help

_is oranger a word???_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:help

_No. Please read a book_

 

to: stingyshima

subject: Re:help

_are you with yamaguchi??_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:help

_Yes_

 

to: stingyshima

subject: Re:help

_can you ask him for me too???_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:help

_... Was my answer not clear enough?_

________

  
“I think I like this girl.”

Hinata blinks awake, pulled from the soft boundary of sleep. He eyes the slivers of moonlight that sneak through the slats of the window blinds. Yamaguchi watches them too from his place on the floor. The dark of the room is so apparent when Yamaguchi stays over compared to when Kageyama does, no nightlight plugged into the far wall to cast a golden sheen over the quiet bedroom.

“You do?”

Yamaguchi hums and Hinata shifts around in his blankets.

“Can you like two people at once?” Hinata wonders.

“What d'you mean?”

“I just mean, um,” he struggles. “You and Tsukishima, right, Yamaguchi?”

Yamaguchi puffs out a soft breath.

“Even that,” he sighs, “even just hearing our names together like that, my stomach…”

Seconds crawl by.

“Your stomach what?” Hinata asks.

“Butterflies,” Yamaguchi breathes.

Hinata stills, ears pricked like if he listens closely enough, he’ll be able to hear them flutter. He can relate—his own and Kageyama’s given names lie sweet on the tip of his tongue like summer fruit. But he won’t say it, not now, not when the moment seems so wholly Yamaguchi’s.

“I think that when you feel some way about someone for such a long time, for what feels like forever, actually, it just makes it harder to reset when they, um—well, when they fucking shut you down, I guess.”

The swear, soft yet poignant, digs at Hinata’s chest. He shuffles to the side of the bed and peeks over. Yamaguchi stares hard at the fragments of moonlight projected across the bedroom ceiling.

“Tsukishima didn’t shut you down,” Hinata tries gently.

“He didn’t? _Just friends—_ what would you call that, Shouyou?”

Hinata flounders. Yamaguchi spills over.

“He doesn’t want me, I know. Not like that. But I want him so bad, I mean, everything, _everything_ about Tsukki is what I want most and I feel like I’m—like I’m sitting in a running car, you know? Like there are so many places to go but I can’t get there. I’m stuck, like I was last year. But this is so much worse than with volleyball. I don’t want to not love him. He needs it and I want to give it, so why won’t he let me?” Yamaguchi asks the ceiling, eyes fluttering closed. “Loving Tsukki feels like a part of me. Even if he’s telling me to, I don’t want to lose that part of me.”

Hinata shifts back to the center of the bed. He wants to roll off of it completely and curl next to his friend, to reassure and rebuild and reword Yamaguchi’s statements so they don’t cut so deep that he bleeds all over Hinata’s futon. He pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes, an attempt to lessen the pressure that builds behind them.

Yamaguchi shoves the covers to the side and rises to his knees. He looks at Hinata over the edge of the bed, eyes big, freckles bathed in sparse moonlight.

“I can’t wait in the car anymore, Hinata. I think the fumes are getting to me.”

Tears prick Hinata’s eyes.

“Yamaguchi,” he warbles.

“Hey, no. Hinata, don’t cry. It’s fine,” Yamaguchi reassures with a soft shake of his head, splaying his fingers on the bed at Hinata’s side. “I’m not crying, see? So you shouldn’t either. I’m fine, really. Things are going to be—they’re just—they’re going to be totally fine. Tsukki and I are fine.”

“I should be saying that to _you_ ,” Hinata insists.

When it comes to Tsukishima, Hinata’s unsure his words will ever be big enough for Yamaguchi. Their friendship is a _mansion_ , Hinata thinks, stacked with floors and rooms and balconies and four-car garages. Hinata has only seen the attic, if even that. He thinks maybe he’s only been sunbathing on the roof.

“You wanna come up here with me?” he asks with a sniffle.

Yamaguchi nods. Hinata pulls his pillow to the far side of the bed to make room for Yamaguchi’s and he settles in easily, eyes trained on the same slivers of light on the ceiling. Hinata follows suit. He can practically hear their thoughts whir in the silence between them, holding sound sleep just out of reach. 

“You like a girl?” he remembers.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Yamaguchi?”

“Yeah?”

“Just make sure that, whatever you do, it makes you happy. Okay?” Hinata stresses, because he thinks Yamaguchi forgets this sometimes.

Yamaguchi heaves out a sigh. Hinata hopes it leaves him lighter than before.

________

  
It’s hard for Hinata to be frustrated about his own shortcomings when his team is so supportive, so quick and gratified when Karasuno’s side of the scoreboard flips to twenty-five. One grumble about a blocked spike and Ennoshita hounds him with alarming swiftness.

“Nonsense,” he says with a wave of his hand. “Everyone did great. You know, Hinata, I think your plays really get the first-years thinking,” he lowers his voice, “which is something they need to be doing more of. So thanks.”

Gratitude wells inside of Hinata so quick that he feels like he's been lifted—and then he actually _is_ lifted, swept from Sendai’s tiled hallway floor and carried bridal-style by Tanaka all the way to the changing rooms. Nishinoya buzzes around them and sings arbitrary praises.

“Where’s Kageyama?” Hinata asks when Tanaka finally sets him down.

“Your head’s going to pop off if you keep swiveling it around like that,” says Tsukishima.

“I wish. Then I wouldn’t have to look at you ever again!”

“Very clever.”

“I’m just kidding, Tsukishima,” Hinata assures him.

“Glad we cleared that up.”

“Seriously, where is he?” wonders Yamaguchi, turning over his shoulder to survey the room.

“I’ll go find him!” Yushin offers with nauseating enthusiasm.

Hinata scowls at the lockers but perks up when Tsukishima responds.

“I’m sure Hinata can handle it.”

“Yeah,” agrees Yamaguchi. “Hinata, can you go get him, please?”

_And you_ have _to listen to him,_ Hinata thinks as he stares Yushin down, _because he’s vice captain!_

Hinata salutes Yamaguchi and tears out of the changing room. He is absolutely bewildered when he doesn’t find Kageyama at the vending machines downstairs. They were really his only guess, so Hinata just wanders the halls aimlessly, peering through the throngs of players and bystanders alike.

He does find Kageyama after a while, standing with his back to him and his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He turns right as Hinata notices him. Kageyama walks his way and two boys watch after him, leaned in close and whispering. Hinata speaks up when Kageyama’s finally close enough to hear him.

“There you are!” he chirps.

“Let’s go.”

Kageyama doesn’t stop but rather walks past Hinata and pulls him along, Hinata’s t-shirt sleeve pinched between his thumb and pointer finger. Hinata hastens to accommodate Kageyama’s quick pace.

“Okay,” says Hinata. “Is something wrong?”

Kageyama looks askance at him. “No. Why?”

“I dunno. You seem a little, uh—clenched, is all.”

“Clenched?”

Their footfalls resound in the empty hallway Kageyama directs them down.

“Yeah, you know. Like, tight,” Hinata answers with a shrug.

“Oh.”

“Like you’re mad or something.”

“Not mad,” Kageyama replies shortly.

He shoves the door to the stairwell open and stomps up the steps ahead of him. Hinata takes a moment to admire his own patience before he zips after him. He stops Kageyama on the landing. Hinata balls his fist into the black fabric at the back of Kageyama's jacket, the white characters that constitute _Karasuno_ twisted in his fingers.

“Kageyama Tobio,” he asserts.

Kageyama turns a sharp gaze over his shoulder and waits.

“Just sit down for a second, would you?”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because I am.”

Hinata releases Kageyama’s jacket and goes to the wall. He slides down it and sits on the generous landing between the two sets of stairs, eyes locked with Kageyama’s. He pulls his knees to his chest.

“Come on,” he pleads.

Kageyama relents. He trudges to the wall and kneels beside him, palms flat on his thighs. Hinata observes the clench of his fingers, his knuckles pale in comparison to the otherwise tan of Kageyama’s skin. Hinata wants to run his own fingertips over them. He wants to rub the pad of his thumb over the bumps and pet them, soothe them, ease the hands Hinata finds himself preoccupied with more and more with each ball they set, each burden they carry, each loose grip they take of Hinata’s own wrist.

Next to him, Kageyama clears his throat. It resounds in the echoic stairwell.

“It was the _king_ thing again,” he confesses, eyes trained somewhere near Hinata’s shoes. Hinata groans. Kageyama nods his agreement and goes on, “I guess those guys knew me in middle school, or played me, maybe, I don’t know. I didn’t recognize them at all.”

“Just forget about it,” Hinata insists.

“I know that.”

Hinata rubs his thumb over a tiny scar just above his knee. 

“You’re not even like that anymore,” he mumbles. “So forget them.”

“Yeah.”

He rubs at the blemish once more and lets his hands fall to his sides. He rests his knuckles on the cool tile and feels Kageyama glance at him, though he looks away when Hinata turns to match him. Hinata admires the smooth plane of his cheek.

“How can you stand me?” Kageyama asks, voice tight with frustration.

“I can’t,” Hinata replies. “That’s why I’m sitting down.”

Kageyama coughs a dry laugh and Hinata beams, his stare sliding upward to appreciate the way Kageyama’s pitch-black hair curves so slightly over his temple.

“Dumbass,” Kageyama accuses airily.

Hinata turns away again. He follows Kageyama’s gaze to his shoes and keeps it there. He gives a short laugh.

“It’s kind of funny, Kageyama,” he starts. “I worked so hard at all those training camps. I did so much and trained _so hard_ and I really, really gave every second everything I had. I did all that just to be able to fight on my own, you know? I wanted _so badly_ to be able to fight on my own.”

In his peripherals, he sees Kageyama nod. Hinata turns to him and grins.

“And now that I can, I just find myself wanting to stay with you,” he finishes.

Kageyama stiffens. He looks back at Hinata, pupils flicking this way and that, almost like he searches for something.

“What?” Hinata asks. “You wanna fight?”

Kageyama shakes his head softly. Hinata distracts himself with the rich, shiny blue of his irises. He jolts when Kageyama leans up on his knees and envelops him. He wraps one arm tightly around Hinata’s neck and buries his face there, hair scratchy on his cheek and chin jabbing into Hinata’s collarbone but Hinata doesn’t mind, barely even notices, transfixed by Kageyama’s breath on his skin and the ferocity of his heartbeat. Hinata makes a soft, pleased sound and presses his palm flat between Kageyama’s shoulder-blades to keep him there.

Kageyama breathes into the skin of his neck. Hinata shivers at the feeling. Kageyama’s weight feels nice as he leans into him, even with their awkward positioning. Hinata’s heart thrums in his chest and he slides his hand down, palm smoothing over the puckers of Kageyama’s jacket until it lies on Kageyama’s lower back, right over where the dip would be if Kageyama wasn’t arched just so. But the thought's still there and it drives Hinata crazy, fingers flinching at the warmth of Kageyama’s skin even through his shirt and jacket. He bites his lip as Kageyama breathes a hot, labored sigh into his neck. After a minute, he slides down to rest his forehead on Hinata’s collarbone.

“Thanks,” Kageyama mumbles into the fabric of his t-shirt.

Hinata doesn’t tell him, but he would endure it all over again: the training, the sweating, the bruises, the sprints, the fights, the humiliation, the cuts, the blisters, the flying falls, the failures, the fear.

He’d do it all for this one minute of cotton comfort, carved delicately from solid stone.


	4. full moon

Yamaguchi gets a girlfriend, and Hinata’s pretty sure Tsukishima loses it.

“But he’s all pale and tired and brooding.”

Kageyama argues, “He’s always pale, he’s always tired and he’s _always_ brooding. I keep telling you this.”

“You’re one to talk,” huffs Hinata.

Kageyama stretches his arm out and looks it over.

“I’m not pale,” he assesses. “Your skin’s way lighter than mine.”

“I meant brooding!”

“Whatever. Stop worrying so much.”

Hinata fiddles with his thumbs but stops when Kageyama flicks the back of his hand. He pointedly pushes Hinata’s assignment closer to him. Hinata sighs and pulls his pencil from behind his ear, posing it over the unmarked paper.

“Kageyama-san!”

Hinata jolts at Yushin’s distant outburst and sends the tip of his pencil zagging across the page.

“Nice,” says Kageyama.

“Shut up.”

“Oh, Hinata-san,” Yushin adds as if Hinata wasn’t in plain view from across the courtyard. He settles on the bench at Kageyama’s other side and rests his chin in his hand. “What’re you guys doing?”

“Homework,” answers Kageyama.

“Cool. Did you get my text?”

Hinata bristles, the paper beneath his pencil even less interesting than it was before. Kageyama fishes his phone out of his pocket and it makes an ungodly _clack_ as he flips it open.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. “Is that—”

“A glow in the dark volleyball net!” Yushin finishes, beaming. “I think this person made their own, though, because I can’t find anywhere that you can actually buy one. But how cool is that?”

He leans into Kageyama to peek at the picture. Hinata turns and glares at Yushin’s hand that comes to rest on Kageyama’s opposite shoulder. He rages quietly for a minute before his curiosity gets the best of him and Hinata leans over too, gasping at the pixelated neon volleyball net on Kageyama’s phone.

“So cool,” he and Kageyama fawn in unison.

“Isn’t it?” Yushin chirps back.

_Not cool enough to merit your hand on Kageyama’s shoulder,_ Hinata thinks irritably, _but still pretty damn cool_. Kageyama doesn’t even seem to notice. Hinata zones them out and considers the possibility of a glow in the dark ball _and_ a glow in the dark net; how awesome the radiating structure would look propped up in Kageyama’s backyard with rushes of neon volleying overtop of it. He taps his pencil against the table in his excitement.

“So which class is this stuff for?”

Yushin leans into Kageyama’s side and leers at the paper in front of him.

“English,” says Kageyama.

“Oh. I’m not very good at that,” Yushin says back. “Do you think you could help me with mine sometime, Kageyama-senpai?”

Kageyama mimics Hinata and flicks his pencil against the tabletop.

“Hinata’s better at that than I am,” he replies.

“Aren’t you in class four?” Hinata challenges.

“Besides,” Kageyama adds, “I’m a terrible teacher.”

“No way. I’m sure there are plenty of things you could teach me, right?” Yushin asks, brushing his blond hair from his face.

Hinata pictures steam erupting from his ears and scalding the side of Kageyama’s face and Yushin’s hand in the process. He clutches his pencil and follows Yushin with his sharpest stare as he departs from them, strolling across the courtyard and back into the school’s main building after some parting Hinata doesn’t catch because his heartbeat leaps into his eardrums.

When he turns back, Kageyama’s looking at him. A cool breeze pushes his hair to the side and his mouth parts, lips pink and chapped. Hinata stares at his bare forehead. 

It reminds him of the time Natsu clipped his bangs back with her cherry barrette. Kageyama sat on Hinata’s bed while she poked and primped him, babbling without end about how much easier his hair is to work with than her brother’s. “Yeah,” Kageyama repeated on a loop because he couldn’t nod without shaking the clips loose. When Natsu finished, Hinata snapped a photo of the two of them with his phone. Kageyama didn’t even grumble.

Hinata sinks into the bench on which he sits at Kageyama’s side. It was one of the first times Hinata thought Kageyama looked _cute_ , he remembers, all patient and agreeable and soft. Another breeze pushes Kageyama’s black hair into his eyes and he lifts his hand to put it right, fingers raking through his bangs to straighten them down the middle of his forehead.

“I can’t teach him shit,” he says finally.

Hinata just sighs.

___________

  
to: stingyshima

subject: yo!!

_your coming to get ramen with us and miko after practice right???_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_I’m busy_

 

to: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_are u sure??_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_Am I sure that I’m busy? Yes_

 

to: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_fineeeeee :((_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_Have a nice double date_

 

to: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_ITS NOT A DOUBLE DATE PLS COME_

 

from: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_Hinata if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…it’s a duck_

 

to: stingyshima

subject: Re:yo!!

_what do ducks have to do with anything????_

___________

  
“Setter,” Kageyama declares proudly after swallowing a mouthful of noodles.

“Oh!” replies Mamiko. “Very cool. I think that’s one of the neatest positions you can have on a volleyball team, for sure.” Kageyama turns and smirks at Hinata and Mamiko loops her arm through Yamaguchi’s, adding, “Besides pinch server, of course. Nothing cooler than that!”

Yamaguchi flushes under the cheap restaurant fluorescents. 

“Middle blocker’s neat, too,” he defends.

Mamiko nods. “True. Which makes middle-blocker-turned-pinch-server the coolest of all, right?”

Hinata agrees dutifully, Kageyama wholly preoccupied with the hot food in front of him. Hinata pushes a much-needed napkin into his lap. Kageyama hums his thanks. Hinata hums back and watches Yamaguchi glow from the particular praise: _cool._ The word makes his eyes shine the same way Mamiko’s do as she looks up at him, all soft and sparkly.

“Both of my brothers were wing spikers when they were in high school,” she tells them.

“Wing spikers?” Hinata fawns. “So cool!”

“Isn’t it, isn’t it?”

“Do they still play now?” wonders Kageyama.

Mamiko shakes her head and her cropped brown hair swats her cheeks. “Do you guys have brothers?”

“Hinata has a little sister,” Kageyama answers for him.

“We went to her elementary play a couple weeks ago. She was a _snowflake_ , how cool is that? Me and Kageyama sat on the classroom floor with the kids who didn’t get cast. I felt kind of bad for them, you know, I’m sure they _wanted_  to be in the play,” Hinata babbles, “but we did get front row seats, _and_ they threw confetti all over us at the end. So it was a win-win!”

Kageyama swipes his napkin across his chin. “He wouldn’t stop trying to talk to the kids around us.”

“I just wanted to—”

“The teacher shushed him like, six times.”

“It wasn’t _six_. It was more like four.”

“Still,” contributes Yamaguchi.

Mamiko laughs into Yamaguchi’s shoulder. Kageyama turns to Hinata and smirks again.

“You have no idea how to speak to children,” he chides.

“Like you do?” Hinata shoots back. “And shut up. I do so know how to talk to kids.”

“That’s because they think you’re one of them.”

“Love the short jokes, Kageyama. Can’t get enough of them.”

“I think Natsu likes me.”

“She does. And she’s the only one,” Hinata grumbles.

Kageyama scowls, shoves him with his elbow and proceeds reach over and steal a chunk of Hinata’s tofu. He pops it into his mouth with a sound of approval. 

“Well, for what it’s worth, I like you both,” insists Mamiko, her green eyes bright.

Hinata beams. Their empty glasses jump when he smacks his hands on the table.

“We like you, too! Yamaguchi most of all, though.”

Mamiko turns. “That so, Yamaguchi?”

Bashful, Yamaguchi nods. Mamiko brings her hand to his opposite cheek and coaxes him closer to land a quick kiss on his jawbone, the only place she can reach from where she sits. Hinata flicks his eyes downward. He watches a piece of egg white that floats in a puddle of broth at the bottom of his ramen bowl. He ignores the sudden urge to follow Mamiko’s lead and plant a kiss on Kageyama, right at the corner of his mouth. _Just to even things out on both sides of the table,_ Hinata figures.

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and gnaws on it, tapping his fingertips on the wooden tabletop. Kageyama glances at him. Hinata stops and curls his digits tightly into his palm. It’s been _forever_ since they last held hands—or so Hinata feels—and even longer since they kissed. Winter had just begun, he remembers, and now it eases off, scarves and mittens tucked readily away in bins and closets.

Hinata shifts in place, suddenly uncomfortable. He wants to scoot closer, drape himself over Kageyama’s lap and hibernate until spring is in full swing. He turns and blinks up at him when Kageyama pokes him in the wrist with a chopstick.

“What?” he asks.

Kageyama shifts the chopstick to rest on Hinata’s knuckles, gone pale.

“Are you trying to break your fingers?” he wonders.

“Maybe,” answers Hinata.

He glances at Yamaguchi and Mamiko who speak closely to one another across the table, inaudible over the clangs and sizzles of the restaurant’s open kitchen. He turns back to Kageyama.

“Well, don’t,” says Kageyama. “You can’t spike without them.”

Hinata pouts openly, not dissimilar to the way Natsu does when their mother makes her wash her hands before dinner.

“We couldn’t hold hands without them, either. Not like you care.”

“Says who?” Kageyama counters.

“Says me.”

His chopsticks clink against the rim of the porcelain bowl when Kageyama sets them down.

“Well, you’re always wrong.”

“Am not,” Hinata argues. “And I could totally still spike with no fingers.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d just use my palm.”

“Then we could still hold hands if you had no fingers, too.” Hinata perks up and Kageyama goes on, “I’d just hold your stump or whatever. Wait—since when does having broken fingers mean having no fingers at all?”

“I have no idea,” Hinata cackles. “I never said that. Apparently, that’s just where your mind went, Kageyama.”

“Oh.”

“You’d really hold my stump?”

Kageyama shrugs. “If it meant that much to you.”

“It does!”

“Then sure.”

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Mamiko wonders.

The table at the opposite end of the restaurant turns and glares as Hinata sputters and cackles. At his side, Kageyama hides a grin behind his hand.

__________  
_

  
Yamaguchi’s father offers to drive them home but Hinata and Kageyama decline and thank him anyway, Hinata’s pent-up, post-practice energy motivating him to go on foot. The crescent moon hangs precariously in the purple evening sky.

“I like her,” Hinata chirps, his steps light and bouncy.

“Good,” grunts Kageyama.

“Don’t you, Kageyama?”

“Their freckles kind of make them look related.”

“Oh my god,” Hinata laughs. “That’s all you can say?”

Their steps are loud on the pavement. Another group of high schoolers passes them by Sakanoshita, jovial and energetic. Kageyama stares them down. Hinata waves.

“You want to not like her, don’t you?” Kageyama asks when they’ve gone.

Hinata turns. “What d’you mean?”

“For Tsukishima’s sake. You want to not like her. Right?”

Hinata stares straight ahead again, steps heavier than before.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I’ve kind of got my foot in both camps, here.”

“Yeah.”

“I just want them to be happy.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says again. “This must be killing him.”

“Who? Tsukishima?”

He nods. “Seeing them together like that. No wonder he didn’t come tonight.”

“He said he was busy,” Hinata relays, head tilting curiously.

“Since when is Tsukishima busy? Come on, Hinata.”

Suddenly, Hinata aches.

“It just—” he pauses to sigh. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”

Kageyama nods. “His whole _friends_ thing is stupid. It’s his own fault.”

“I’m sure he’s got his reasons. It _is_ Tsukishima, you know?”

“I guess. I still think it sucks, though.”

“You suck,” Hinata retorts.

“ _You_ suck.”

“You suck more.”

“You suck most—I win.”

___________

  
Hinata pounces Tsukishima the second he trails out of his classroom.

“Tsukishima!”

“Jesus,” Tsukishima breathes. “Could you possibly be any louder?”

Hinata pretends to think. “I mean, I _could_.”

Tsukishima covers a yawn with his hand as their feet take them to the courtyard on autopilot. Even as a second-year, it’s far too easy for Hinata to get lost in the hallway within leagues of towering students. He weaves around a gaggle of girls to get back to Tsukishima’s side. Tsukishima spares him a glance from the corner of his eye.

“It’s too early,” he claims.

“It’s already lunchtime,” counters Hinata.

“Still too early.”

“Maybe you’re not getting enough sleep!”

Tsukishima sighs. “Maybe.”

He loses him once more as they cross the courtyard and Hinata ducks between various members of the basketball team before triumphantly claiming his seat at their table. Tsukishima plucks petals fallen off the trees overhead from the tabletop and drops them to the ground, one by one. Hinata watches them fall.

“You know, Stingyshima,” he starts, “I’ve been thinking—”

“I’m figuratively shocked.”

“—that you and me should get some of those matching shirts, you know, like I’ll get one with ‘if lost, please return to Tsukishima’ on it and you get the one that says, ‘I’m Tsukishima’.”

Tsukishima rolls a pink petal between his thumb and forefinger. “So basically just a shirt with my name on it.”

“Well, what else would you want it to say?”

He smirks. “'I am Tsukishima, but please keep him’.”

“Jerk.”

Hinata snatches the lone petal left on the table between them before Tsukishima can ruin it, too. He leans over on the bench, lets the petal flutter down to join the others on the grass and eyes the arrangement for just a second before an early spring breeze scatters them. Hinata sighs.

“We hung out with Miko-chan yesterday, you know,” he tells Tsukishima.

“Oh?” Tsukishima replies shortly.

“Yep,” he answers. “She’s cool and stuff, but she’s not as cool as you.”

Tsukishima’s stare flickers around Hinata’s face like he wants to roll his eyes but decides against it at the last moment. Hinata drums his fingers on the wood. Absently, he wonders what’s taking Kageyama so long. Tsukishima pokes at the bridge of his glasses.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replies, his voice flat like paper.

Hinata thinks of all the things he could tell Tsukishima that _would_ matter—that would have him gasping and grinning and reeling and shoving his _friends only_ contract through the shredder and promising to love Yamaguchi wholly, unabashedly, resolutely as Hinata thinks he deserves, as he thinks both of them deserve, infinitely and overwhelmingly so. But Tsukishima is his own problem and no matter how smart he is, he just can’t seem to solve it.

_Unfair_ , thinks Hinata _, it’s so unfair._

Tsukishima’s gaze softens somewhere over his shoulder and Hinata turns to find Yamaguchi, his grin gentle at the sight of them. Hinata swats his arm as he passes to sit opposite him.

“Tsukki, I just found out there’s a _part two_ to our Arctic documentary.”

“Since when?” asks Tsukishima.

“Since forever, apparently. We’ve just been too preoccupied with the first one.”

“Arctic documentary?” Hinata parrots. “Wait, that penguin movie you said me and you couldn’t watch that one time because it was you and Tsukishima’s thing? Even though the box cover looked so cute with all the tiny penguin babies on it?”

“They’re called chicks,” Tsukishima corrects. He turns to Yamaguchi and repeats, “‘You and Tsukishima’s thing’?”

Tsukishima’s complementary blush is pink while Yamaguchi’s is full-on _scarlet_ , creeping beneath the freckles on his cheeks.

“Right, uh, that one," Yamaguchi stammers. "We’re always watching it. Tsukki can even recite the narrative from memory.”

“Come on, Tsukishima! Let me hear it!”

“No.”

“I bet you don’t even know it,” Hinata challenges.

“Right. Like that’s going to work.”

“Fine. You guys discuss your _penguin-y secrets_ all you want. I’ll go find Kageyama.”

“Good luck!” chirps Yamaguchi.

Hinata salutes him and vaults from the bench.

“‘Located in the northernmost part of our earth,” he hears as he zips away, “the Arctic is among one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet. Characterized by temperatures dropping to below forty degrees Celsius and a windchill of…'”

___________

  
Hinata peeks into Kageyama’s classroom to find him and some girl, soaked in sunlight streaming through the massive windows that line the far wall. Their dark hair shines in the same way and Hinata watches Kageyama’s mouth move. She takes his hands in hers. He pulls them back to his sides.

Hinata retreats and slumps on the wall, sliding down to sit on the tiled floor of the hallway. He waits. Hinata’s unsure if Kageyama finds anything staler than other people—even _girls_ , something to which Hinata can’t relate—and takes a second to mull over what keeps Kageyama with him rather than on his own like he was for long, be it literal or metaphorical. _Kageyama alone_ —Hinata is buried by the thought. He sees himself fastening a sash around the two of them. Every time Kageyama grins, twitchy and aberrant like his face doesn’t quite know how to harbor it, every quiet look he grants him, each time Hinata wrestles their hands together, every time he follows the half-hidden V of his hips as he changes or craves the dip of Kageyama’s lower back beneath his fingertips, the sash tightens.

The tip of his tongue runs along the back of his teeth as Hinata explores the idea.

“Shouyou!” Nishinoya barks from the end of the empty hallway.

“Noya-san!”

“What’re you doing? Shouldn’t you be eating?”

Nishinoya zips over and peers down at him, an impressive eyebrow arched to his hairline.

“I’m gonna. Just waiting for Kageyama.”

“Where’s he at?”

Hinata jabs a thumb toward the classroom. “Getting confessed to, I think.”

Nishinoya chirps and goes to the door, peering surreptitiously into the room like Hinata had. He watches for a second and turns back.

“She’s beautiful!” he reports, awe-struck.

“I thought so, too.”

Nishinoya regards him thoughtfully.

“You know, Shouyou,” he notices, “you seem pretty relaxed.”

Hinata blinks. “Yeah?”

“Someone’s in there telling Kageyama about their actual mushy, lovey-dovey feelings for him and you’re just…fine?” When he puts it like that, Hinata’s a little _less_ fine but still unruffled. He nods dumbly and Nishinoya goes on, “So why is it that whenever Yushin so much as talks to him, you look like you wanna dig up a portal to the underworld and toss him in?”

Hinata considers this. He wants to make Nishinoya an itemized list, although the frustration he feels at the mere mention of the intrepid first-year would probably have Hinata ripping it up partway through.

“It’s just different,” he decides, unwilling to squash his good mood so early in the day.

Nishinoya lets him off the hook. Nodding, he grabs Hinata’s outstretched hand and pulls him up. 

“Make sure you guys leave yourself enough time to eat. Geez, what’s taking them so long? Anyways, I’m gonna go find Chikara.”

“Tell him I say hi!”

Hinata receives a hard clap on the shoulder and Nishinoya zooms around the corner just as the dark-haired girl leaves the classroom, gives Hinata a soft yet suspicious look and does the very same. Kageyama manifests in the doorway and looms.

“Oh. Hey.”

“Took you long enough,” says Hinata.

“I never know how to handle those.”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Kageyama quirks an eyebrow. “Who do you get confessions from?”

_Not you_ , Hinata thinks stuffily.

“I’ve been confessed to before, you know,” he huffs. “A whole _two_ times.”

“Impressive,” says Kageyama.

“Really?”

“No.”

“Ass,” Hinata accuses. He spins around and insists, “I have tons of good qualities.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama agrees shortly.

Their footfalls are loud on the tile as they head for the courtyard. Kageyama looks so tall, _feels_ so tall at his side and Hinata loves the way he has to crane his neck to look squarely at him, loves the gentle downward tilt of Kageyama’s head that makes his bangs fall in front of his eyes. Hinata's fingers twitch at his hip. He wants to reach out and snake his arm around his waist and, preoccupied with the thought, almost slams into the door that Kageyama pushes open for him at the last second.

___________

  
to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)

subject: meow

_kenma omg_

 

to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: meow

_i think i think kageyama’s hot????_

 

from: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_Lol_

 

from: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_Wait - Are you serious?_

 

to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_DEAD SERIOUS…..RIP_

 

from: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_You’re just now realizing this?_

 

to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_HUH???_

 

from: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_Shouyou, I figured you already knew that you thought this._

 

to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_you knew??!!_

 

from: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_Yep_

 

to: KENMA (^oᴥo^)  


subject: Re:meow

_THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME !!  
_

___________

  
“It’s getting dark, huh?” Hinata pants, doubled over with his hands on his knees.

“You wanna stop?” Kageyama pants back.

“No way.”

His tone shrouded in pride, he replies, “That’s what I thought.”

Hinata straightens. “Give me another.”

They move from sets and spikes to spikes and receives, Kageyama bashing the volleyball into the junction of Hinata’s sore, pink forearms. His receives are far better than last year, or so he’s told—Nishinoya, Yamaguchi, even Tsukishima has told him so. Hinata doesn’t see it himself, so he’ll go until he does. His pink forearms flush to scarlet.

They play under the moonlight and yellow glow through the back windows of Kageyama’s house, his mother leaving on as many lights as she can as not to make Kageyama anxious about the night's darkness ("Just another reason why we need the glow in the dark stuff!" Hinata reminds him). There’s a full moon tonight—Yamaguchi had texted him—and it takes one distracted glance upward the moment Hinata remembers this for the ball to smack the heel of his palm and snap his wrist back just enough to make him wince.

“Stupid, pay attention,” scolds Kageyama.

Dry grass crunches under his feet as he steps close. Hinata twists his hand around to alleviate the faint sting.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. Stupid,” he adds petulantly.

“What distracted you, anyway?”

“It’s a full moon.”

Kageyama turns over his shoulder and spares it a glance. Azure eyes soak up the luminosity and hold it captive, gleaming even as Kageyama turns back to face him. Hinata stares.

“Beautiful,” Kageyama notes, and Hinata blushes inexplicably. “Is your wrist okay?”

“Yep. Just stings a little.”

“Maybe we should stop for tonight.”

“What?” Hinata squawks. “No!”

“You’re gonna wake up my neighbors.”

Kageyama puffs a breath to get his bangs out of his eyes and leans down to latch his cool fingers around Hinata’s forearm. He inspects his wrist and huffs again.

He concludes, “It might be a little swollen.”

“Kiss it better?” Hinata suggests, tone light as if introducing a joke.

He inhales sharply when Kageyama actually _does_ , lifting Hinata’s wrist to his mouth and bringing them together with a gentle press. He releases his hold and Hinata’s arm falls back to his side and swings a bit, as if suddenly disconnected from the rest of his body. Kageyama stares down at him, face lax.

“Wow,” Hinata breathes.

“Did it work?” asks Kageyama.

Hinata doesn’t feel anything other than his rampant heartbeat.

“All better. I didn’t, um, I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he admits. He scratches idly at the side of his neck and mentions, “Maybe I should try to get hit in the mouth next time.”

Instantly, Kageyama flushes.

“Hinata!” he bellows.

“Now who’s waking the neighbors?”

“You can’t—you can’t just _say_ stuff like that.”

“Yeah I can. I just did.”

There’s a tiny, still moment. The last vestiges of moonlight twinkle as they depart from Kageyama’s irises. He turns. He steps to the discarded volleyball, bends over and takes it in his hands. Kageyama spins it once between his fingertips and it reminds Hinata of the way he does the same thing before his serves, mighty and thunderous and awesome.

Hinata shakes out his body and swipes a quick palm up and down his forearms to ready them for more impact. He avoids where Kageyama’s mouth had pressed against his wrist, afraid he’ll wipe the endeavor out of existence if he were to touch it so soon.

Kageyama comes back to him. Close and tall, he stands, his head blocking the full moon from Hinata’s view.

“What?” Hinata asks.

So softly, Kageyama lifts the ball and bumps it against Hinata’s mouth.

Kageyama tucks the volleyball under his arm and leans in, and he’s close, so close that Hinata is slapped with anticipation so present he feels it in the night air, in the paper-thin space between their lips. He rises on his tip-toes and closes the gap. Their mouths press together, lips dry and unsure as Hinata’s hands shake at his sides for no reason. Kageyama is so gentle; his lips are light on Hinata’s with the sweetest, softest pressure. He only pushes back when Hinata does, ducking his head to meet him more firmly, head tilted with the tip of his nose nudging Hinata’s warm cheek. 

Hinata’s heart ricochets around his ribcage. He detaches from Kageyama with full intent to return.

“Kagey—”

“Shouyou,” Kageyama interjects breathlessly.

There’s a warm, wild spin in Hinata’s stomach as he leans up again, lips parted further than before. Blood zings through his veins and enlivens him, forcing a soft sound from his mouth that vibrates against Kageyama’s lips. Hinata feels Kageyama’s cool hand at the back of his neck. He drives their mouths more firmly together for just a second before it slides up into Hinata’s unruly hair. Hinata _likes_ that, likes it so much that he would tell Kageyama if he had even half a mind to separate their mouths from one another’s. In return, he brings his hands to hold Kageyama’s hips. They shiver still, Hinata’s muscles twitchy and working on instinct alone as the warmth of the skin of Kageyama’s waist bleeds into his palms.

Kageyama’s fingers twist further into the hair at the back of Hinata’s head, gently but pointedly. Hinata hums again; he just can’t seem to stop the sounds before they bubble from his lips. He inhales sharply through his nose and pushes the breath back out, coming and going shallower than before. If he focuses hard enough, he hears Kageyama breathe, too.

Kageyama breaks the kiss. He stays close for a few seconds after, and Hinata pictures the sash. He nearly feels the silk of it caress his back through his t-shirt. Kageyama’s hands fall back to his sides and Hinata follows suit, his palms entirely numb without the warm, taut skin of Kageyama’s hips beneath them.

Hinata’s gaze lowers to eye the volleyball he spins between his fingertips once again.

“Ready for another?” Kageyama asks through a slight pant.

“Yeah,” Hinata breathes.

They shuffle back to their places under the voyeuristic moon and Hinata shakes himself out once again. Still shaky and preoccupied, he barely catches the ball when Kageyama throws it to him.

“Toss it up,” he says, “and I’ll set it to you.”

Piercing azure eyes prod Hinata warmly. He shakes all over again.

“Got it.”

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Hinata calls and lobs the volleyball to him, “ _Tobio_.”

Kageyama misses the toss entirely.


	5. your jacket

“Don’t move them,” Yamaguchi warns through a breathy laugh, “don’t you dare move them.”

“I won’t—I wouldn’t!”

“This might be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“ _Might_ be? What have you seen that’s better than this, Yamaguchi?”

“You’re right. This is the peak of my adolescence, probably.”

Tsukishima and Kageyama lie slumped against one another on the couch, chests puffing with slow, sleepy breaths. Hinata notes the wild contrast in hair colors where their heads tilt together. He’s the only one who _hadn’t_ fallen asleep, eyes glued to the television screen until the movie credits rolled. He’d poked Yamaguchi awake to see the spectacle, finger pressed to his lips.

At Hinata’s side, Yamaguchi huffs a sigh. His grin retreats.

“Tsukki’s been tired a lot lately.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Hinata reassures. “Now where’s my phone?”

Yamaguchi finds his grin again. “Oh my god, yes, take a picture.”

“I think I left it in Kageyama’s room. Let’s go.”

The two of them shuffle to their feet and Hinata bounds down the hallway, stopping only in the absence of Yamaguchi’s slight steps behind him. He furrows his brow, tiptoes back to the living room and peeks around the doorframe.

Yamaguchi’s on his knees in front of the couch. He lifts Tsukishima’s glasses from his face gingerly, so gingerly like they’ll snap to pieces in his grip. Yamaguchi folds them with a soft _clack_. He leans up and places them on the side table. Hinata pivots like Yamaguchi will be at his back in a second but he isn’t; just that same soft silence in the absence of motion. Hinata turns back.

Yamaguchi stares, palms pinned to his thighs as if to keep himself from reaching out. He watches Tsukishima breathe, face unmarred by plastic and glass, gaze tame and soft like the plush carpet under Hinata’s bare feet.

“Are you coming?” Hinata whispers.

Yamaguchi turns over his shoulder.

“Oh,” he says, sounding faraway. “Yeah.”

He gets to his feet and Hinata barrels down the hall to Kageyama’s bedroom with Yamaguchi in tow. Hinata pushes through the door and takes a deep breath; it’s thrilling almost, to be in here without Kageyama.

“He really needs some posters or something,” says Yamaguchi.

“I know, I know. Why is he nine different kinds of weird?”

“This is minimalism taken to a terrible extreme. Hey,” he chirps, “that’s new, right?”

They step to where Yamaguchi points, a strip of paper tacked to the wall beside Kageyama’s desk.

“Whoa. It’s _me_.”

Hinata presses a finger to the glossy photo strip. He pokes at where he and Kageyama’s shoulders touch. He remembers it instantly—not like he’d _forgotten_ , but he has to dredge it up from where it had been tucked under other, newer memories—and almost feels the heat and salt of summer on his skin, tastes the granules of sugar on his tongue from cotton candy he’d eaten way too fast, hears the click-and-whir of the photo booth as the blinding flash snapped in succession.

“That’s so cute,” Yamaguchi insists.

“Oh my god,” says Hinata, cheeks burnt terracotta red. “How have I not seen this before?”

“No idea. It’s the only thing on the wall besides his training regimen. And I still think one hundred squats is a little excessive.”

Hinata steps back and flops onto Kageyama’s bed. He thinks of his own copy of the photo strip, shoved in a dresser drawer of things he’s too lazy to declutter and feels unbelievably guilty. He’ll dig it out the moment he gets home and tack it to his wall too, but beside his bed so it’s the first thing he sees when he wakes up. He grins at the ceiling.

Across the room, the desk chair creaks under Yamaguchi’s weight. Hinata sits up to face him.

Voice low, he says, “Yamaguchi?”

“Hinata?” Yamaguchi says back.

“What, um—how do you feel about Tsukishima?”

Yamaguchi glances at the open door of the bedroom.

“Why would you ask that?” he whispers.

Hinata averts his gaze and pulls at a loose string on Kageyama’s bedspread.

“Well,” he mumbles, “you’re dating Miko-chan.”

“Tsukki and I are friends. We’re just friends,” Yamaguchi repeats like he’s heard the phrase enough times to relay it perfectly. Robotically, almost. Hinata’s pressed a button so worn-down that the paint is chipping. He feels flecks of it on the pads of his fingers.

“Not forever, though, right?”

Yamaguchi stares. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Hinata pulls his eyebrows together and softens his gaze, something to negate the sharpness of Yamaguchi’s. It doesn’t work.

“Doing what? Yamaguchi, I’m only—I mean—”

“If Tsukki doesn’t want me, he doesn’t want me. It isn’t hard,” Yamaguchi mutters. “This is what he wants—nothing. So I keep it at nothing. And I find someone who actually _does_ want to be with me. I deserve that, right?”

“Of course,” answers Hinata, taken aback.

“This is what he wants. What I want’s not an option.” Yamaguchi’s voice crumbles and falls, the fire behind it petering out as sudden as it had ignited. He rests his hands face-up on his thighs and curls his fingers into his palms. He finishes, “And when has Tsukki ever changed his mind?”

The weight of the question pins Hinata to the bed.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?”

The two of them start and look to Kageyama in the doorway, hands clutched on either side of the wooden frame. Yamaguchi blinks. Grief flickers from his expression and Hinata lets out an audible breath.

“Going through your stuff,” he answers.

“Yeah,” Yamaguchi agrees, “and commandeering it as our own.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Kageyama yawns.

“Is Tsukki still sleeping?”

“No. He’s in my kitchen. He’s getting ice cubes to put in Hinata’s shoes.”

“ _What?”_ Hinata screeches, leaping up from the bed. “Why?”

“I told him you probably took a picture of us.”

“Didn’t, actually.”

“But the intent was there,” supplies Yamaguchi.

Hinata grabs his phone up from the bed. He doesn’t mention the photo strip tacked artfully to the bare expanse of Kageyama’s bedroom wall. He simply lets it exist. Of course, he _wants_ to say something, if for no other reason than to see a cherry blush tattoo Kageyama’s face. But he won’t. He’s content with the knowledge that it’s there, that Kageyama sees it, that Kageyama _wants_ to see it, so often and so deliberately that he’s projected it upon his wall—he and Hinata’s closeness, he and Hinata’s familiarity, he and Hinata’s _existence_ together in the world, in their city, in the tight space of a photo booth in which they sat hip-to-hip one lazy, _excellent_ summer afternoon.

“Kageyama,” Hinata says because he wants to.

“What?”

Kageyama turns and tromps back down the hallway when Hinata has no follow-up, he and Yamaguchi on his heels. Hinata tugs at Yamaguchi’s sleeve in the doorway.

“Yamaguchi,” he pleads quietly, “please don’t be mad at me. My heart can’t take it, okay?”

Yamaguchi puffs out a breath that ruffles Hinata’s hair.

“Not mad at you,” he sighs. “Just sensitive.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Yamaguchi asks and Hinata shakes his head.

“No way. Sometimes it’s better to be soft, I think.”

Yamaguchi gives him a gentle, curious stare. When Hinata grins, Yamaguchi does too.

_________

 

from: tobio

subject: Hey

_Wanna walk to school together_

 

to: tobio

subject: Re:Hey

_yep!! omw to your house now <3_

 

from: tobio

subject: Re:Hey

_What’s that_

 

to: tobio

subject: Re:Hey

_a heart ….!!_

 

from: tobio

subject: Re:Hey

_Howd you do that_

 

from: tobio

subject: Re:Hey

_> 4_

 

to: tobio

subject: Re:Hey

_so close kageyama_

___________

  
“Isn’t it supposed to be warm by now?” Hinata wonders, arms wound around himself.

“It is. It’s just rain.”

He glares. “Says the guy wearing a jacket.”

“Like you should have,” scolds Kageyama.

“It was sunny when I left my house!”

The wind howls in reply. Hinata tucks his arms inside his t-shirt, presses his knuckles to the white fabric and pushes outward.

“Look, Kageyama,” he chirps. “It’s like that one movie where that alien thing bursts out of that guy’s gut!”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I’m still cold, though.”

“Think of something warm,” Kageyama tells him.

Hinata pokes his fingers into the taut fabric as he thinks. A gust of wind sneaks under his t-shirt and goosebumps erupt on his skin.

“Kotatsu,” he suggests and Kageyama gives an agreeable hum.

“Socks.”

“Slippers.”

“Socks _and_ slippers,” says Kageyama.

“You can’t just piggyback off mine!”

“I just did. Also tea.”

“Hot chocolate.”

He hums again. “Is it working?”

“No,” Hinata answers. “Now I just want all those things.”

“Me too.”

The sky splits and pinpricks of rain dot the pavement as they walk.

“Great,” Hinata quips and gapes when Kageyama throws his hood up. “Now you’re just throwing it in my face!” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kageyama insists.

Hinata glowers and pulls his shirt tighter around himself. He thinks of the Kotatsu he’ll claim as soon as he gets home from practice, even if he has to fight Natsu for it with one of her styrofoam katanas. A fat raindrop plops right onto the tip of his nose. Hinata gives another pathetic shiver.

Kageyama rolls his eyes, pulls his hoodie from himself and hands it over.

“Here.”

Hinata stares. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Put it on before you die.”

“I won’t _die_ ,” Hinata insists but takes the jacket anyway.

He practically swims in it. It’s so pleasant—so nice and warm, made even warmer by Kageyama beforehand. Hinata hums with satisfaction. He curls his fingertips over the cuffs of the too-long sleeves and stuffs his hands in the roomy kangaroo pocket.

“Better now,” he mumbles into the material.

“Good,” says Kageyama. He pulls the hood over Hinata’s head.

“Thanks, Kageyama!”

“Next time bring your own, dumbass,” he mutters, cheeks pink.

It drizzles the entire way to the gym.

___________

  
Yamaguchi grabs Hinata and drags him out on the landing the second he and Kageyama enter the club room.

“I was not soft. I was _decidedly_ not soft, like we said,” he pants. “I was hard.”

“Get a room, you two!” howls Tanaka as he and Nishinoya stroll past.

Nishinoya’s hair is slicked down over his head from the rain, void of its usual vitality. He stops and shakes like a wet puppy, sending droplets all over Hinata’s—technically _Kageyama’s—_ hoodie before he claps him on the shoulder and follows Tanaka into the club room, its door swinging shut behind them. 

“Yamaguchi, what’re you talking about?”

“Tsukki pissed me off last night. I kind of, um—I kind of yelled at him.”

Hinata leans into the railing to ground himself, certain he’s slipped into some kind of bizarro world. Yamaguchi chews at his thumbnail. His copper eyes flit this way and that, unable to settle and Hinata waves a hand in front of his face.

“Okay, you’re making _me_ nervous,” he claims.

“Sorry,” Yamaguchi insists. He drops his hand.

“Did you want to talk about it?”

Yamaguchi shakes his head.

“You sure?” asks Hinata.

Yamaguchi shakes his head again. His brown hair swats his cheeks.

“Alright,” Hinata replies slowly. “Where is Tsukishima, anyway?”

“No idea,” Yamaguchi sighs.

“What will you do?”

His gaze finally settles on Hinata, sharp and resolute.

“Hinata, I’m going to tell him.”

They both ignore a loud, sudden bang from inside the club room and Ennoshita’s subsequent groan.

“Wait, _what?”_ Hinata yells.

“After practice tonight, I’ll go to his house. I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him what I want, and how badly I want it—er, him.”

_But he knows_ , thinks Hinata, _he already knows, doesn’t he?_

“I don’t understand,” he admits, brain scrambled by the can of worms that is Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.

“Me either,” Yamaguchi sympathizes, fists clenched at his sides. “But don’t talk me out of it.”

___________

  
“What a fucking slacker.”

“Geez,” replies Hinata, “if you think he’s a slacker now, what’d you think of him last year?”

Kageyama considers this. “A major slacker. Slacker times ten.”

“You can be a real jerk. He’s our friend, you know.”

“ _Your_ friend,” claims Kageyama, dabbing the sweat from his face with a fluffy white towel.

“You’re his friend too,” says Hinata. “Even if he’d never say it you.”

Kageyama lofts an eyebrow. “He said it to you? I mean, he _said_ you were his friend?”

Hinata nods with pride. Befriending Tsukishima is a feat, he acknowledges, like swimming upstream with concrete sneakers or hiking a treacherous summit despite the way the altitude threatens to explode both his eardrums outward. Hinata considers making buttons. _Tsukishima’s Friend_ , they will read, equipped with flashing LED lights that he and Yamaguchi will wear around like Olympic gold medals. He thinks he’ll pin one to Kageyama’s bag while he’s distracted.

Kageyama drops his towel to the grass and says, “Wait.”

“What?”

“Yamaguchi’s going to Tsukishima’s tonight?” he asks, voice low as to not draw the attention of the gaggle of first-years stretching nearby. “To do—whatever—tell him he wants his dick and stuff?”

Hinata headbutts him in the knee. The first-years flinch at Kageyama’s resulting yelp and he doubles over before crumpling to the grass beside Hinata, rubbing his fingers over his kneecap to soothe it.

“Asshole,” he mutters.

“ _You_ are,” Hinata counters. “It’s more than that. You know it’s more than that with them.”

“I said ‘and stuff'.”

“Whatever. Stretch by yourself,” he huffs, inching away from Kageyama and getting grass stains on the butt of his shorts. He looks across the field to where Yamaguchi stands with Ennoshita and flips through pages on a clipboard.

“Hey,” says Kageyama and Hinata turns. “Are you really mad?”

“It’s just stupid when you belittle what two people feel about each other, that’s all.”

Kageyama blinks. Through his blank stare, Hinata practically sees what goes on in his head: two ideas reach out for each other and struggle to connect but ultimately fall away again, as separate as they ever were.

“Are we still talking about Tsukishima and Yamaguchi?” Kageyama wonders.

He crosses his legs, pulls his knee to his chest and holds it there for a good stretch. Hinata glances at his slender thigh where his shorts have ridden up, ordinarily tan like the rest of him if not just a touch paler for the lack of sun it sees. Hinata wants to sketch the line of muscle there with his fingertip and feel it firm beneath his cheek. He drums his fingers on the green, green grass.

“Are you hot?” Kageyama asks.

“No,” scoffs Hinata.

“Your face is red.”  
  
“Then stop looking at me.”

There’s a beat.

“No,” Kageyama protests, indignant. “I like to look at you.”

Color floods into Hinata’s face—he knows it’s bad when he can actually _feel_ it—and he turns away again. He watches Tanaka hike Nishinoya up onto his back and march circles around an unamused Kinoshita. Yamaguchi shrieks as Nishinoya somehow transfers himself from Tanaka’s back to his despite never setting foot on the ground.

“Yamaguchi’s going over there tonight?”

“That’s what he said,” Hinata answers.

“He has a _girlfriend_.”

Hinata sighs and abandons his stretches. Twisting a blade of grass between his forefinger and thumb, he rests his chin on his knee.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “It’s like he loves Tsukishima too much to think straight.”

“Well, he’s not straight, is he?”

“Figuratively, Kageyama. _Figuratively_.”

Kageyama nods. “Right.”

“Who’s not straight?” chirps Yushin, popping up behind Kageyama and looming over them like some sort of terrible giraffe.

_None of your business,_ Hinata wants to snap. But he just can’t gather the _bite_ it takes to force the statement out from behind his teeth. Kageyama leans back on his hands and tips his head to peer up at Yushin.

“Did you do your stretches?”

“Sure did, Kageyama-senpai.”

“Good,” says Kageyama.

Yushin brightens even under such fleeting praise. Hinata wants to throw his sweaty towel over his head like people do over bird cages to get their parrots to sleep.

“Say, Kageyama-senpai,” Yushin lilts again, “can you stay after with me?”

“What for?” asks Kageyama.

Yushin leans down to rest his hands on Kageyama’s shoulders and insists, “I need to hit more of your awesome tosses if we’re going to play Datekou next week.”

“I guess so,” answers Kageyama. “Yeah, we can do that.”

“But it’s not even a school night,” says Hinata, his voice just edging on whiny. _But I don’t want to stay late tonight. But that one werewolf movie is on later and you know I’m too chicken to watch it by myself. But I wanted you to sleep at my house. But you’re supposed to be my boyfriend._

“So?” replies Yushin, furrowing his impeccably blond eyebrows.

Kageyama tilts his head back down to meet Hinata’s gaze. He waits for the answer Hinata doesn’t have, buried beneath twinges of rage and confusion and admissions and rejection and enough damn jealousy he feels he could suspend himself within it and float forever, like it’s water.

“Okay,” Hinata decides, standing up. “You really _can_ stretch by yourself, then.”

___________

  
from: tobio

subject: Hey

_Hey_

 

from: tobio

subject: Hey

_Hinata_

 

from: tobio

subject: Hey

_Where are you_

___________

  
One look at Hinata’s petulant pout and Tanaka and Nishinoya wrangle him into their plans, which are fascinating, thrilling and, most importantly, _illegal_. He drops his bike off at Tanaka's for the night and the third-years graciously accept Hinata’s refusal to carry the six-pack under the expansive hoodie he still wears; the one he’d neglected to return to Kageyama out of spite. He puts it on somewhere between Tanaka’s house and the underlit park.

They form a triangle on the grass and the third-years perform their best Ennoshita impressions—they are surprisingly astute, Hinata has to admit—and he cracks up, fingers curled tight over the sleeve cuffs of the stolen jacket. His phone burns with Kageyama’s unanswered texts where it lies snug in the jacket’s kangaroo pocket.

“He’s actually the best, though,” Nishinoya insists of their captain.

“Totally,” agrees Tanaka.

Hinata watches him swish around the beer in his can and wonders, “You aren’t mad that he made Yamaguchi vice captain, are you, Tanaka-san?”

“No way,” Tanaka answers, still swishing. “I’m the guy who shoots the gun, not the guy who loads the bullets. You know what I mean?”

“Not really,” Hinata admits. Absently, he thumbs at the phone in his pocket.

Nishinoya interjects, “Wouldn’t that be the same guy?”

“Besides,” the ace continues, “if anyone should be mad, it’s Kinoshita. Because they’re besties and shit. Yamaguchi's a great choice, I think. Nothing wrong with second-years being vice captains.”

“Like that guy from Fukurodani last year,” says Nishinoya.

“Akaashi-san!” Hinata supplies.

“Right, yeah. Ryū, remember their ultra-cute managers?”

Tanaka confirms vehemently. Hinata pulls his phone out, texts Yachi some nonsense and toys with the idea of answering Kageyama’s messages before stubbornly ignoring them once more and calling Yamaguchi instead. He inches away from Tanaka and Nishinoya’s fawning as it rings.

He knows Yamaguchi would have told him if something had gone down—if he’d told Tsukishima, if he’d told _Mamiko_ , if he’d done this, if he’d done that—but an uneasy feeling whirls in his gut anyway. He keeps a tight grip on Yamaguchi’s well-being so that if it tries to tug away, Hinata can tug it right back. He breathes an inexplicable sigh of relief when a voice interrupts the fifth ring.

“Did you do it?” Hinata chirps in lieu of a greeting.

“Do what?”

“Huh?”

“Did he do what?”

“Wait. Tsukishima?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, what the heck?” Hinata pulls the receiver away for a moment to let out a breath, so damn glad he hadn’t been more specific before he adds, “Good! So you’re not dead!”

“Not dead. Did you need something?” Tsukishima asks shortly.

Phone pressed to his ear, Hinata lies back on the grass. Constellations peek through the purple expanse of sky—things he could never name or identify, but he thinks he’d be pretty good at making them up—so instead, he admires the faint twinkle of each single star as it burns. In Hinata’s short silence, Tanaka burps. Nishinoya laughs brightly.

“You’re with Yamaguchi? Don’t get him sick, too!” Hinata orders. “Especially since it’s the weekend!”

“I’m not sick. I’ll be at practice tomorrow.”

He wonders if he should poke and prod for more but chances are Tsukishima will clam up further, tired voice straining with irritation like it does when Kageyama argues with him first thing in the morning.

“Awesome!” he says instead. “Why are you answering Yamaguchi’s phone?”

“He’s asleep,” Tsukishima tells him.

_Sleeping is one of Yamaguchi’s favorite things_ , thinks Hinata, _so he must be okay, right?_

Nishinoya pulls the tab from another beer can with enthusiasm and the crack-and-hiss echoes through the empty park, chased by him and Tanaka’s cheers of awe. A bit of foam splats on Hinata’s cheek due to Nishinoya’s habit of shaking things before he opens them. He wipes it with his sleeve and sits back up.

“My bad, Shouyou!”

“Where are you?” implores Tsukishima.

“At the park with Tanaka and Noya-san,” Hinata answers. The third-years in question perk up and shake their heads in unison as he finishes, “They have _beer_.”

Nishinoya and Tanaka cackle through their fingers, their elation so contagious that Hinata wants to throw his phone to the grass and sprint laps around the perimeter of the park. He digs the toe of his sneaker into the dirt, soft from the rain earlier on and switches his phone to his other ear.

“They said not to tell you,” Hinata teases. “And then they said not to tell you that they said not to tell you.”

Tsukishima grunts, unimpressed.

“You’re at the park?” he drones. “It’s nighttime.”

“Wha—? It’s not even eight.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah, really. Why the heck is Yamaguchi sleeping?”

“He just is.”

“I guess I’m not surprised,” Hinata replies. “Anyway, you guys should come here!”

“I don’t know about that,” says Tsukishima.

“Come on,” Hinata whines. He pouts so overtly that Nishinoya leans onto his knees and gives his head a reassuring pat. Tsukishima hums a non-answer through the receiver and Hinata counters, “Then wake Yama up and give him back his phone so I can tell _him_ to come.”

He practically hears gears whir as Tsukishima prepares a mental pros and cons list.

“We’ll be there,” he answers finally.

He clicks off. Hinata whoops and tosses his phone onto the grass in the middle of their triangle.

“Tsukishima thinks too much,” Tanaka claims around the rim of his can.

Nishinoya agrees, “He needs a beer more than anyone.”

___________

  
As it turns out, Tsukishima _does_ have a beer. It ends up being one of Hinata’s _favorite_ nights because Kageyama comes around, too and although he’s oblivious, he’s soft and steady and warm where he sits right at Hinata’s back in front of all their friends with his hands heavy in the stolen jacket’s kangaroo pocket. If it weren’t for his loose embrace, Hinata’s sure he would up and float away.

They leave the park late. Hinata waves as Tsukishima and Yamaguchi depart down their road, figures loose and lanky under pale streetlights. Giddy with Kageyama at his side, Hinata sweeps Kageyama’s hand into his after they walk Nishinoya and Tanaka to the latter’s house. A pleasant pressure lingers on Hinata’s back from the way they sat together. If he focuses hard enough, Hinata feels the _bump, ba-bump, ba-bump_ of Kageyama’s heart between his shoulder-blades. He counts to it as they walk under the moon, the evening air heavy with reminders of rain.

“I was home for over an hour when Tanaka-san texted me,” Kageyama tells him.

Hinata watches his feet and says, “I figured you were still hanging out with Yushin.”

“We were practicing. Not hanging out.”

“It can be both,” he mutters.

“I don’t know what your problem is,” claims Kageyama. “You were hanging out with Nishinoya-san and Tanaka-san.”

“That’s _totally_ different.”

“Yeah? How?”

Hinata exhales with force. He presses he and Kageyama’s heart lines more firmly together.

He digresses, “What’d Tanaka-san text you, anyway?”

“To come to the park. Duh.”

Kageyama flinches when Hinata digs into his front pocket and fishes out his phone.

“Hey!”

“Relax! I’m just getting your phone.”

“You can’t just stick your hand in my pants.”

“I didn’t,” Hinata argues. “I stuck it in your pants _pocket_. Big difference. Oh my god, are you blushing?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kageyama grumbles.

Something heavy drops through Hinata’s gut, then—not heavy like _guilt_ , or _shame_ , or _disappointment_ or the like—but something comfortable and pleasant, tangible and tingling, shifting around Hinata’s abdomen, desperate for attention. He swallows and focuses hard on Kageyama’s phone in his hand, flipping it open with a noisy _clack_.

Hinata groans. “Yushin texted you.”

The lead ball rolls around his abdomen when Kageyama leans over his shoulder.

“‘Want to hit the sports shop this weekend?’” Kageyama reads aloud and follows the statement with a noise of protest. He sighs a breath on the shell on Hinata’s ear and complains, “But I _just_ saw him.”

Frustration flares in Hinata’s chest.

“Then just tell him to _back off_.”

Hinata squares up to fight; fingers clutching the phone in his hand, arguments assembling in his head, heart pounding in his ears. It only quiets when Kageyama heaves out a sigh, exhausted and resigned. In Hinata’s own, Kageyama’s hand feels suddenly heavy.

“No,” Kageyama tells him, voice low and private. “I’m trying—I’m trying to be a good senpai.”

Hinata’s face falls. It’s the first time he’s ever _actually_ hated someone, he thinks, imagining Yushin’s stupid jaw beneath his knuckles. Hinata wonders how Yushin can take something like Kageyama’s pursuit of approval from his teammates and mangle it, twist and tear it in his fingers and take such _advantage_ of something so principled and righteous and _good,_ spinning it into something as he has; something selfish and lascivious and shallow.

Hinata takes in a breath.

“Hey,” he murmurs, jostling their joint hands. “You are. You’re a good senpai, Kageyama.”

Kageyama grunts noncommittally. He turns to him, gleaming azure eyes hooked on Hinata’s face for a handful of seconds before he promptly turns away, cheeks pink. He drops Hinata’s hand and stuffs both of them into his pockets. Hinata gawks as the blush on Kageyama’s face deepens, color shooting up to the tips of his ears.

“Whoa,” Hinata marvels. “What’s that all about?”

“What? Nothing. You’re just—”

He blinks. “I’m what?”

“You,” Kageyama starts and stops again. “You’re very—”

“Spill, Kageyama.”

“Nothing. Nevermind. Can I have my phone back now?”

“Hang on,” Hinata tells him, pushing his hand away. “Tell me what you were going to say first.”

“Give it.”

“Tell me what you were going to say and you can have it back.”

Kageyama huffs. “Keep it then.”

“Kageyama,” Hinata whines.

“You’re just nice. You're nice to me. And nice-looking,” Kageyama replies abruptly.

Hinata blinks. Kageyama won’t return his stare.

“Nice-looking?” he repeats. “Nice-looking like the people outside of supermarkets that ask for church donations? Or nice-looking like the magazines Suga-san had to take away from Tanaka-san in the club room last year?”

“Jesus Christ,” Kageyama groans. “Just forget it.”

Hinata clutches Kageyama’s shoulder with both hands.

“Wait, no, but I can’t!” he whines.

“The, uh—the second one, I guess.”

Hinata’s hands fall back to his sides. He hops to match Kageyama’s new hurried pace.

“Oh my god. Kageyama, you think I’m _hot?”_

“I think you’re annoying,” Kageyama replies haughtily.

“Well, which one am I more of?”

Kageyama considers this like Hinata will quiz him on it later. 

“Cute. You’re more cute,” he answers. “I guess. Whatever. There—happy?”

Stomach in a pleasant whirl, Hinata slips Kageyama’s phone back into his pants pocket. He’s sure Kageyama couldn’t blush harder if he _tried_ , tan skin blotched with pinks and reds like it is after he runs. Hinata is light on his feet as they walk, his ribcage full of helium.

His voice even sounds elevated when he asks, “Kageyama?”

“What?”

“Can you piggyback me until we get to your house?”

“Okay.”

Hinata’s heart does star jumps in his chest at how easily Kageyama hoists him up, strong hands cupping where his thighs meet the backs of his knees. In turn, Hinata loops his arms loosely around Kageyama’s neck. He tilts his head and watches where his dark, dark hair tapers off at a point at the back of his neck, sharp for the eyes but so soft for the hands. _Just like Kageyama,_ Hinata thinks. He puffs out a breath and watches the black hairs quiver.

“You’re so strong, Kageyama,” he remarks.

Kageyama hoists him higher and says, “You compliment me too much.”

“I do _not_. I hardly ever compliment you!”

“ _Kageyama, you’re so strong,_ ” he mocks, “ _Kageyama, you’re so tall and cool.”_

“That is a bold-faced lie, Kageyama. I’ve never once thought you were cool.”

“Yeah, huh. I remember.”

“No way.” Kageyama clenches the bottom of Hinata’s thighs and Hinata chirps a laugh. “Hey, stop, that tickles! Being cool is mostly Tsukishima’s thing, I think. He’s got the cool etched into his seven-foot tall _bones_ , you know? Yamaguchi knows what I’m talking about.”

“He sure as shit does.”

Hinata slumps over Kageyama’s shoulders, arms sticking straight out like a zombie.

“Alright, fine,” he admits. “So maybe I think you’re a little cool.”

It’s subtle, but Kageyama perks up.

Hinata goes on, “I didn’t used to, though. It’s a new development.”

“If anything,” says Kageyama, “I thought it would be the other way around.”

Hinata laughs again and earns himself another pinch.

“No, seriously,” Hinata insists once he’s calmed down. He clears his throat and presses his chin into Kageyama’s shoulder, rambling, “It’s like you’re one of those jelly donuts, you know? The ones with the filling in the middle? Eventually, you get through the dry dough and hit that sweetness. And it’s like, after you’ve reached that, the rest of the dough tastes even better.”

Kageyama turns and gives Hinata a sideways look. Noisy crickets chirp in the short silence. Hinata grins, curls his fingers over Kageyama’s firm shoulders and shrugs. Kageyama turns back.

“Cute,” he deadpans.

Hinata heart flutters in his chest and a pleased sound bubbles from his throat. Kageyama walks them to his house, Hinata hunched over so he can press his cheek to his shoulder-blade. They shift with every step and it kind of hurts but Hinata doesn’t mind, unbelievably calm in the moment, stomach warm on Kageyama’s back through his shirt and secretly hoping it drives Kageyama at least a little wild the way it does him. His fingers clench Kageyama’s shoulders involuntarily with the thought. Kageyama just hums.

Hinata lets himself be carried and can’t fathom Kageyama doing this with anyone _else_ , anyone who isn’t _him—_ the thought alone seems wrong and unnatural, like looking up and seeing a humpback whale float effortlessly through the expanse of blue sky in the same way it wanders the blue ocean. _Weird,_ Hinata acknowledges, _it would just be_ weird _; bizarre and surreal and maybe even a little hazardous. No, no—it’s got to be me. It’s got to be him and me._

Even if Yushin does get his hooks into Kageyama, splitting him at the seams and taking the very most important, critical parts of him until he was wholly _his_ and no one else’s, Hinata thinks he’d still take up whatever is left.


	6. clearest blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you guys! omg, so happy to finally deliver this final chapter. remember when i said it was gonna be like 10k words? haha...aha....ha........ //laughs so i don't cry/// anyways please go adore [this art](http://dandelionmeadow.tumblr.com/post/153047659700/karasuno-first-years-because-ive-once-again) made for stay, stay, stay.
> 
> happy, happy reading!!

Spring rain batters the gym’s high windows, distracting and intrusive even with the shouts and whistles of the game at hand. Hinata tunes in to every consoling pat to his back, every ruffle of his hair, every reassuring shout mingled with his name.

Kageyama’s tosses go to Yushin after Karasuno’s last timeout and Hinata can’t figure out _why_ —he’s screwed up twice, only _twice_ —and the lead they have on the other team is kept only by Yamaguchi’s serves. The worst part is that Hinata can tell exactly how much Kageyama and Yushin’s extensive practice has boosted their confidence, their give and take, their synergy on the court. The smack-and-bounce of both spikes Hinata failed to block rattle around his head.

Yamaguchi, reliable as ever, pulls ahead. The last whistle screeches through the gym.

Head ducked, Hinata follows the team to the club room. He just feels _heavy_ —iron shackled around his ankles and sitting on his chest, throat dry and scratchy. He’ll get over it. He just needs a minute. After all, they _won—_ fireworks will pop off in his chest eventually, when he feels a little lighter. Tsukishima stares him down but it’s gentle; concerned. Hinata feels him look away when he doesn’t look back.

Ennoshita makes his rounds in the club room, clapping everyone on the shoulder. Hinata thinks he’s so much like Daichi in these moments.

“Good job, every one of you. Now hurry up and get home before it rains even harder.”

“Right behind you, Chikara!”

The third-years leave the club room in a cluster. In their absence, Hinata feels sparks crackle between himself and Kageyama.

“Good job, Yamaguchi.”

“Thanks, Tsukki. You too.”

Hinata twists around when Kageyama zips his bag shut with vigor. 

“Timing. Timing, timing, timing,” he sighs. “Do you get that? Do you get that, dumbass Hinata?”

“Kag—”

“You jump before the spiker’s even in position when you get too excited like that.”

Hinata’s cheeks burn. “I know what timing is, Kageyama.”

“I don’t think you do. Ask Tsukishima.”

Hinata bristles. Tsukishima spares them a glance.

“We won,” he says flatly, “so what does it matter?”

Yushin pipes up, “Just be sure to keep an eye on the spiker and try to calculate their jumping power.”

“Yushin’s right,” declares Kageyama.

Tsukishima drills a look of contempt into the first-year—Hinata _knows_ that look, he’s been on the receiving end of it more times than he can remember—and Yamaguchi stills halfway into his jacket. Under the spotlight, Hinata burns hotter.

“I know he’s right,” Hinata snaps. “Who the heck do you think taught him that in the first place?”

“Not you, apparently. Before you teach something you’re supposed to know it for yourself, dumbass!”

Hinata’s hands ball into fists at his sides. _You teach him, then,_ he thinks. _Practice with him in your backyard, buy him all the glow in the dark volleyballs he wants, teach him stuff you and I learned together and walk home with him every day but he’ll never play as well as_ me _and you’ll never realize he wants to kiss your face, just like me. Stupid, you’ll never realize, you won’t ever realize it until—_

“What the fuck is your problem?”

Hinata is thrown from his tangent. It takes him a second to place the voice as _Tsukishima’s_ , golden eyes wild beneath his glasses in a way that contradicts his casual drone. Hinata’s mouth falls open. Chest tight, he stares between his friend and the first-year.

“Tsu-Tsukishima-senpai?” quakes Yushin.

“Shut up,” Tsukishima orders, jabbing a finger at Kageyama. “Whenever he yells at Hinata, you get this dopey goddamn lovey-dovey look on your face.”

Hinata’s heart pounds in his throat. Yamaguchi steps in.

“Calm down, Tsukki—”

“I’m calm, Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima insists. “I’m just asking a question.”

“No, you’re not.”

He balls his jersey in his fist and turns to Yushin again, agonizingly patient.

“Answer me.”

Under his gaze, Yushin squirms.

He struggles, “I don’t…”

“You don’t know? You don’t know why the hell you do that?” Tsukishima asks steadily. “Because I do. And so does Hinata. And your vice captain. Kageyama is quite literally the only one who doesn’t. Imagine that, huh?”

Hinata vibrates from the adrenaline, the air in the club room thick and awkward yet somehow lighter than before. The weight on his chest cracks and dissipates. He takes in a welcomed breath.

The other two first-years back away from their ringleader to avoid collateral damage.

“I—I’m sorry!” Yushin claims and bows, blond hair shifting with the quick motion.

“I don’t what?” asks Kageyama.

“He f—”

Yamaguchi cuts Tsukishima off with his name in its entirety; something Hinata has never, ever heard from him and before this moment, thought he never would. Tsukishima glances at the hand Yamaguchi wraps around his arm. He pulls himself free and steps right up to Kageyama.

“Of the two of you,” he growls, “ _you’re_ the fucking dumbass.”

Tsukishima turns away, drops his jersey into his bag, slings it over his shoulder and leaves. Hinata swears he sees a superhero cape flutter behind him as the club room door swings shut.

The other first-years stare down at Yushin, still bowed, with pained expressions.

“Okay,” announces Yamaguchi. “Time to go. Come on. Everyone but you two.”

Hinata and Kageyama stay put as instructed while Yamaguchi herds the first-years out like a particularly skilled Border Collie, hands pushing at their backs until they shuffle from the small room with lowered heads. Yushin won’t look up from the floor. Yamaguchi only ducks back in to give Hinata’s shoulder a tight, reassuring squeeze.

“I’ve gotta go find Tsukki,” he tells them. “God, I’m so fucking sick of _just friends_. Are you guys okay?”

Hinata nods. “We will be.”

Yamaguchi stares between them for a long moment. He gives a single, resolute nod and leaves them to it, the echo of the latch absolutely uproarious like the storm outside when the door shuts again.

The air shifts. Suddenly anxious, Hinata pulls at the hem of his shirt.

“Tsukishima’s scary,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” says Kageyama. “Glad he’s, uh—glad he’s on our side.”

“Me t—”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,” he interjects. “It was stupid.”

“Yeah. It was.”

“You’re kind of the person I want to yell at the least.”

“Then you’re not doing a very good job, Kageyama.”

“I’ll do better,” he promises.

“Okay. And don’t _ever_ not toss to me, even if I screw up,” Hinata huffs.

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Kageyama parrots. “Now can you tell me what the fuck just happened?”

Hinata obliges, his feet sore from dancing around it.

“Yushin _likes_ you,” he blurts, “like, he wants to kiss your face and stuff, you dumb idiot!”

“ _Me_?” barks Kageyama, an incredulous hand on his hip.

“Yeah _you_ , Kageyama—the one he tries to spend all his time with, the one he high-fives with practically every step you take, the one he flirts with every day—gross—I mean, he’d probably kiss your feet if that wasn’t so weird. Among other things, but I don’t really want to think about that.”

Kageyama makes a strangled sound and throws his hands over his face. 

“Flirts?” he repeats into his palms.

“Yeah, flirts! I wanted to kick him!”

“Should’ve,” Kageyama mumbles.

“ _I’m sure there are plenty of things you could teach me,”_ Hinata recalls. He pries Kageyama’s hands from his face so he’ll meet his eyes before he barrels on, “And in that stupid sing-songy voice he does, I mean, _that_ didn’t register as flirting to you? Oh my god.”

“No! I mean, maybe if _you_ said it to me, but…” Kageyama trails off.

Suddenly exhausted in the face of Kageyama’s unwavering blush, Hinata drops to sit against the shelves. He pulls his knees to his chest. Kageyama squats in front of him, shoes squeaking on the tile. Hinata eyes their stripes of gold.

“It’s awful to watch that," he mutters, "even if I know he could never like you as much as me.”

“He likes _you_ , too?” Kageyama asks, outraged.

“No! I meant he could never like you as much as _I_ like you. Stupid.”

Kageyama shifts to sit back on his heels.

He hugs his knees and wonders, “Why would he like me?”

“Because you’re awesome, duh,” Hinata retorts. Kageyama puffs an unconvinced breath between them. Hinata leans forward to poke at the black laces of Kageyama’s shoes, following the zigzag with his pointer finger. He goes on, softer now, “Because you’re tall and athletic. Because you’re different. Because sometimes your signature glare goes away and it makes you look sort of handsome and because you’re kind of weird, which doesn't sound like a good thing but it really is, and because you only ever put ‘hey’ in the subject of your texts. Because when you care, you _really_ care. Because under the cold, you’re actually really warm. I don’t know—lots of reasons.” Hinata shrugs. “Lots of stuff.”

Kageyama swallows audibly. “You think all that? About me?”

Hinata nods. Kageyama looks down. He watches Hinata’s finger as it continues to trace his shoelaces, up and down, down and up, up and down again.

“But why would I like him?” he wonders.

“Because he’s like me and _you_ like me and if he’s like me then you're gonna like him, too—”

“He’s not like you,” Kageyama says plainly.

Hinata finally tears his gaze from his shoes to meet Kageyama’s bright eyes. Kageyama blinks at him.

“Huh?”

“Yushin. He’s not like you,” he says again.

Kageyama stands and pulls Hinata up with him. Hinata shuffles his feet on the floor.

“Both Noya-san and Tanaka-san said that he is,” he mumbles.

“Well, maybe I know you better than Nishinoya-san and Tanaka-san.”

Hinata can’t argue with that. Still, he stays apprehensive, heart torn between sinking and floating. It bobs around in his chest. It bobs some more when Kageyama steps closer and looks down at him, face soft like it was when they first kissed in Hinata’s bed in the almost-dark.

“Besides,” says Kageyama, voice steady, “I don’t want him. I know who I want. _You_ know who I want.”

Hinata forgets how to breathe. “Who?”

“You. Shouyou, you. You know that, right?”

“Duh,” breathes Hinata, head fuzzy. “It’s just—hearing you say it is—wow.”

Kageyama grins. “Dumbass.”

“Shut up,” Hinata replies, lurches up and kisses him.

Soft at first, _something romantic_ , Hinata thinks but loses his footing when Kageyama pushes them into the row of lockers. The metal clangs at Hinata’s back and Kageyama kiss, kiss, kisses him, gentle yet insistent, leaving Hinata breathless to the point where he thinks he might go limp like a rag doll in Kageyama’s arms.

“Tobio,” he grunts against his mouth and Kageyama pulls back.

“This is okay?” he asks.

Hinata only pants and nods in reply. Kageyama’s azure eyes grow wide.

“God, you look—” he starts.

He abandons it in favor of pressing his mouth to Hinata’s again, slower this time, but Hinata can tell he’s holding back. Kageyama’s shoulders are tight where Hinata’s fingers press, posture rigid even as he slouches to meet him. Maybe it’s his grand height, his firmness, his insistence or the mild power he exudes—Hinata can’t pinpoint what about Kageyama makes him feel so _safe_ , so lifted and untouchable.

“You can—you can kiss me for real,” Hinata tells him.

Kageyama returns, body shoved closer. Their noses squish together and Hinata tilts his head but they bump once more because Kageyama follows him, cool hands resting at the junction of Hinata’s neck and shoulders. They’re so close and warm and complete that Hinata hardly thinks about it when he pushes his tongue into Kageyama’s soft mouth.

Hinata pauses for a second like he’s done something he’s not supposed to. He puffs patient, shallow breaths on Kageyama’s cheek through his nose. Kageyama’s tongue presses to his like _move, why don’t you_ so Hinata goes with it, chasing the wet, novel warmth. He shivers when their tongues slide up against one another’s once, twice, three times until Kageyama pushes a harsh sigh into Hinata’s mouth like the wind’s been knocked from him. Hinata has half a mind to ask if he’s alright but gathers he is—he so, _so_ is—because Kageyama leans down, hooks his hand around Hinata’s knee and hikes his leg up so his thigh presses against the jut of his hip. 

Kageyama holds him there as they kiss and Hinata squirms, happily overwhelmed. His hands fall from Kageyama’s shoulders, no longer tense, to press fingertips into the dip in his lower back. Their hungry lips lose coordination if they ever had it.

Hinata relents only with the familiar creaking of the metal staircase outside.

“Hey,” he breathes, swatting at Kageyama’s shoulders, “hey, listen.”

Hinata drops his leg, a single rubber squeak erupting through the small room. Kageyama takes a step back at his request. Voices float past the doorway over the sound of chaotic rain—girls’ voices, and they pass the volleyball club room to enter their own. Hinata heaves out a breath, heart spinning circles in his chest.

Kageyama actually doubles over. He pants down at the tiled floor.

“You okay?” Hinata asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve just—that was—and I’ve never—”

“Me either.”

“It’s probably better that we stopped,” says Kageyama, catching his breath.

Hinata frowns. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, stupid. That’s not what I meant.”

He looks up at him, gaze piercing despite his blown pupils. Hinata gets chills— _good_ chills, blood roiling through his body and stomach churning airily to appease the heaviness in his abdomen.

“Oh,” he chirps, beaming. “So, Tobio?”

Kageyama stands. “What?”

“Can I call you my boyfriend now?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m your boyfriend.”

“And I’m yours, right?”

“I think that’s how it works. Yeah.”

Hinata’s heart leaps into his throat. He swallows it down.

“Good. Fine,” he replies.

“Fine,” says Kageyama.

“Fine!”

“Fine.”

“I really like you a lot.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama agrees, “me too.”

___________

  
from: yama tadashi

subject: !!

_are you busy?? dad made way too much daifuku..………AGAIN_

 

to: yama tadashi

subject: Re:!!

_DW YAMA WE ARE ON OUR WAY_

 

to: yama tadashi

subject: Re:!!

_i’m w my BOYFRIEND tobio!!!_

 

from: yama tadashi

subject: Re:!!

_i wouldn’t expect anything different ….. : > _

___________

  
Hinata doesn’t know why Kageyama rags on Yamaguchi for his tendency to fall asleep in any situation when he himself is almost just as bad. Except instead of drooling, Kageyama snores—loudly, worryingly—like he’s new to the whole _breathing_ thing.

“He’s gonna wake up my parents,” Yamaguchi frets, brows pulled together.

Hinata chirps a laugh and zips up his jacket to fend off the static chill of Yamaguchi’s house.

“I’ve got to break up with Miko-chan,” Yamaguchi says out of nowhere, chin in his hand and fingers squishing into his freckled cheek.

Hinata blinks. He’s unsure how to feel, how Yamaguchi _wants_ him to feel but something twirls in his chest that feels a lot like relief. He feels it for Tsukishima, mostly, because Hinata thinks he’s about two steps away from tearing his hair out over the whole thing. Hinata sympathizes. Jealousy tweaks at his chest even though Yushin’s backed off; residual twinges from the past months he’ll learn to stomp out eventually.

They both jump at Kageyama’s particularly boisterous snort.

“Shit,” says Yamaguchi, hand over his heart.

“I know, I know. But you’re—you’re breaking up with her? Because of Tsukishima?”

He lifts his hand to rub the back of his neck, lost gaze stuck to the carpet. Hinata waits.

“It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” Yamaguchi wonders. “But he’s just—he is—I could date a thousand boys and a thousand girls and still, no one would even come close. And if I know that, Mamiko’s better off with someone else. I mean, she’s great. She’s a star,” he sighs, dragging his fingertip across the constellation of freckles under his eye, “but Tsukki’s the whole sky, you know?”

“Oh,” Hinata breathes.

He looks to Kageyama, the side of face bashed into the couch cushion. There's a spot of sweet jelly at the corner of his mouth. Hinata would rub it away with the pad of his thumb if he knew it wouldn’t wake him. 

___________

  
“Do you think there are animals besides wolves that people turn into at night?”

“It’s not just night,” mumbles Kageyama, mouth pressed to Hinata’s chest, “it’s full moons.”

“Right, right. But do you think so?”

“I don’t know.”

Hinata hums. “I’ll text Tsukishima.”

Kageyama rests his full weight on Hinata from his thighs to his chest, warmly, unapologetically where they lie on Hinata’s couch. Their positions had been switched earlier, but he’d been so offended by Kageyama’s comment that Hinata should be on top because he’s the _littler_ one that he’d made them flip over. He adores nights when his parents take Natsu to swimming lessons because he gets Kageyama all to himself; no tiny, sticky fingers grabbing at their shirts or poking Hinata in the ribcage because she knows he hates it.

“He says there were legends about people turning into _bears_ in Northern Europe, oh my god.”

“What is he,” buzzes Kageyama, “the wolfbear expert?”

“Werebear, technically. I think.”

The man on the television screen sprouts claws and shreds through a tree trunk. Hinata’s only able to watch as the creature sinks his wolfy teeth into a nearby deer because Kageyama’s weight is so distracting that the gore hardly registers.

“Are you tired?” Hinata asks. “You’re not even watching.”

Kageyama lifts his face from Hinata’s chest and says, “Kind of.”

“If you fall asleep on me, I’ll shove you onto the floor.”

“Yeah, right,” Kageyama snickers.

“What? You don’t think I’m strong enough?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe I should try and get bitten by a werewolf so I can get super strength like that guy. _Wolf_ strength.”

“Good luck with that,” drones Kageyama, chin digging into Hinata’s sternum.

“Maybe _you_ should get bitten, Tobio. Maybe that way you’ll be able to stay up past nine.”

On the television, a woman screams, blood spurting from her neck. Hinata winces.

“Fine,” says Kageyama. “Bite me.”

He swings his hand up in front of Hinata’s face. Hinata scoffs and grabs Kageyama’s fingers. He brings his hand closer to bite it, but really just ends up pressing the fronts of his teeth to the back of Kageyama’s wrist.

“Well?” he asks.

“I think it worked,” Kageyama answers, shuffling up. “I suddenly feel very alive.”

Hinata grins and lets out an ‘ _oof’_ when Kageyama sits squarely on his stomach. Hinata blushes instantly when Kageyama presses his palm to his chest, firm and unwavering. His following gulp is embarrassingly audible.

“Liar,” he jests and Kageyama shrugs.

There’s a bloody gurgle from the television. Neither of them look to it.

“Can it be my turn now?” he deadpans.

“Sure. Do your worst, Kageyama.”

Kageyama blinks. “I never do my worst.”

_Nerd_ , thinks Hinata, beaming, _such a nerd._

“Doesn’t it have to be the neck?” asks Kageyama.

“I don’t know. Here, let me text Tsuki—oh, ah.”

He leans down and presses his lips to Hinata’s skin, then, at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Kageyama’s dark, silky hair slides under his jawbone, tickles his shoulder, skims the side of his face as Kageyama grants his skin a damp, noisy kiss.

“Hey, that’s not—that’s not a bite,” Hinata gasps. “Don’t stop, though.”

Kageyama’s lips follow the curve of his neck. He anchors himself to a certain inch and tongues at it, soft and so warm that the rest of Hinata’s body feels cool in comparison. Goosebumps mark him and Kageyama soothes them, traces of teeth and tongue and lips worrying at quivering skin.

Hinata had no idea Kageyama wanted to do stuff like this, close and warm stuff. Wet stuff. He got a taste in the club room and Hinata holds that close, clutching it to his chest so tightly he fears his fingers will break. But it still _floors_ him, almost literally, when Kageyama works with actions because he thinks his words won’t cut it, and Hinata goes weak every single time.

Kageyama pulls the collar of Hinata’s shirt down with a single finger to mouth at his collarbone when his initial spot on Hinata’s neck has been sufficiently prodded. Hinata exhales shakily, hands lifting to rest on Kageyama’s solid shoulders. He feels the tug of taut fabric at the back of his neck and wonders if he should take it off but, as much as he hates to admit it, he’s _nervous._ It’s a good nervous, though; the tip-top of a rickety roller coaster. So he keeps his hands in place and resolves only to consider it if Kageyama does.

But Kageyama’s preoccupied as it is, shuffling downward between Hinata’s legs. Hinata’s brain zips off when Kageyama’s pink tongue hits the inside of his thigh.

“It’s a nice spot,” he explains, right into Hinata’s warm skin.

___________

  
“Friendships don’t end like relationships do.”

Tsukishima swears by this, voice all low and private in one of Sendai’s empty changing rooms. He begs Hinata to spill Yamaguchi’s reasons for dumping Mamiko—and Tsukishima _never_ begs—but Hinata won’t budge, _can’t_ budge. It stings him more than Tsukishima knows.

Hinata thinks of friends of his who’ve faded since he’s moved through high school, since he’s played volleyball which feels like _forever_ , since he graduated middle school with countless numbers in his phone that he never, ever used.

He glances at Tsukishima where he sits on the opposite end of the bench.

“What are you talking about?” he asks. “Friendships end all the time.”

“Not in the same _way_ that relationships do.”

“What way is that?” Hinata wonders.

Tsukishima glances back. He curls his long fingers into his palms.

“Bitterly,” he mutters, “in burning and in heartbreak.”

“So…you wouldn’t feel that same way if your friendship with Yamaguchi ended?” Hinata asks, head tilted—top-heavy from how carefully he tries to choose his words to Tsukishima in times like these. He clarifies, “Like, if he said he didn’t want to be best friends anymore?”

Tsukishima stays quiet, golden eyes peering at the row of lockers opposite them.

“I think—I think that friendships can end just as badly and as—what did you say, heartbreakingly? Is that a word?—as relationships,” Hinata tells him. He lifts his hand to poke at the hickey Kageyama left on his collarbone. “I mean, as long as the people in them cared about each other. Or if they loved each other. Especially if, uh. Especially if someone loves their friend and the friend doesn’t know.”

He watches wordlessly as Tsukishima stands from the bench. He tugs his sports glasses down around his neck and scrubs his hands over his face. When they fall back to his sides, they reveal a grin. It’s small and it’s calculated, but it’s there. Hinata glows and imagines himself erasing the shadows in Tsukishima's life. He wants so badly to help.

And he will.

___________

  
The afternoon sun glitters over the school grounds, free of the clouds that hindered it all morning as Hinata and Yamaguchi lean into the railing outside the club room. Yamaguchi reaches up and pulls the tie from his hair. He rolls it onto his wrist and sighs.

“Did I really fall asleep on Kageyama’s lap?” Hinata asks him.

“Totally,” Yamaguchi laughs.

“You guys lie!”

“Why would we lie about that?”

“He says I drooled all over his pants. But that sounds more like a you thing, Yamaguchi.”

“Whatever you say, Shouyou. It was pretty cute, though.”

Hinata looks over his shoulder and peers through the club room door, left ajar. Tsukishima is preoccupied, caught up in something Tanaka shows him on his phone with the ace’s arm locked around his shoulders. Hinata turns back to Yamaguchi.

“And you fell asleep with your head on Tsukishima’s shoulder.”

Yamaguchi pushes his hair from his face and says, “I know.”

“Now _that_ was cute,” Hinata tells him.

“Yeah,” Yamaguchi dismisses, looking down. “Not much, but at least it was something.”

“I have to tell you,” Hinata blurts.

He nearly bites a hole through his lip and watches Yamaguchi blink, once, twice, copper eyes sharp from the sunshine.

“What is it?”

“Yamaguchi, I—and you’re my friend, so—and I think you should know—”

“Hinata,” he interrupts, his gaze and voice equally gentle, “just tell me.”

The words stack together in his head and drop heavily into his stomach. They crackle in his chest and bubble up his throat and before Hinata realizes, they’re flicked from his tongue, all whisper-shouts and babbles.

“Tsukishima—he _loves_ you, I mean, I know he does and he has this thing—well, you know how he is better than anyone, Yamaguchi and I think he’s just afraid—not think, actually, I _know_ —he’s afraid of ruining your guys’ friendship if you start to date and break up or whatever, like, he doesn’t want to lose that so badly that he’s convinced himself you have to stay friends and friends are cool and all but it’s not what you want, and it’s not what _he_ wants and we all know I wouldn’t want just that with Kageyama because what we have is so much better than that and I just want you and Tsukishima to feel the same way, like, I want there to be a time where you guys look back while you’re together, I mean _together_ -together and think _holy cow, why haven’t we been doing this the whole time_?”

Hinata pants, red in the face. Yamaguchi’s eyes grow big.

“Tsu—” he starts, cutting off when his voice breaks. “Tsukki…”

Hinata stays quiet. He lets Yamaguchi scroll through the information he’d dumped, not saying a word because he’s probably spoken enough for an entire week in the last thirty seconds. Yamaguchi’s face changes until it settles on something soft, something quiet and focused. Determined, almost. He pays no mind to the blush beneath his freckles.

“Thanks, Shouyou,” he breathes finally, voice tight and turns a bright beam on him. “Where would I be without you?”

Hinata links their arms for a moment and beams back.

“You too, Yamaguchi. And you don’t have to thank me—he’s being crazy.”

“No," Yamaguchi replies, shaking his head almost fondly. "He’s being Tsukki."

“Um, Yamaguchi." Hinata hesitates. He twiddles his thumbs together and implores, "Tsukishima will forgive me, right? For telling you?”

Tsukishima joins them on the landing, then, and he and Yamaguchi go quiet.

“Ennoshita wants you, Yamaguchi.”

“Sounds sexy!” barks Nishinoya as he and Tanaka pass by.

Hinata pats Yamaguchi on the back like _go get ‘em, tiger_ and leaves he and Tsukishima to it to join the third-years. He marches down the stairs in time with Tanaka’s heavy feet and finds Kageyama by the vending machines, volleyball bag slung over his shoulder. His face is way too pinched for someone who’s trying to decide between regular or strawberry milk.

“Strawberry,” Hinata chirps.

“Fine,” says Kageyama. “Want one?”

“I’m not sure if I just did something really good or really bad,” Hinata says in lieu of an answer.

Kageyama blinks. “It’s just milk.”

“Not that, stupid. I told Yamaguchi about Tsukishima’s thing, you know, his problem.”

“Tsukishima has a lot of problems. You have to be more specific.”

Hinata rolls his eyes and catches the pink carton Kageyama tosses him.

“His _friends only_ thing.”

“Oh.”

“Now I’m nervous,” Hinata frets. “What if I screwed everything up?”

“You didn’t.”

“But how do you _know_?”

Kageyama shrugs. He pokes a straw into his milk carton and takes a contemplative sip.

“Because you’re a good person. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi will figure themselves out. And they’ll have you to thank,” he says with another shrug. “And then maybe we can go a day without Tsukishima’s weird, depressed face and Yamaguchi’s sad freckles.”

“Sad freckles?” Hinata repeats.

“Yeah. When he’s upset, even his freckles droop a little.”

Hinata stares. Kageyama squints down at him.

“What?” he grunts. “I pay attention sometimes.”

“How come you don’t notice when _my_ freckles are sad?”  
  
“You don’t have freckles, dumbass.”

Hinata hops at his side as they round the volleyball gym to the front of the school. He wrestles Kageyama’s free hand into his and weaves their fingers together, so easy by now that the touch settles the residual, nervous churn in Hinata’s stomach.

“Well,” he lilts, “maybe I should grow them.”

“They’re not soybeans, Hinata, you can’t just _grow_ them. Can you?”

“Let me ask Tsukishima,” Hinata insists, fishing his phone from his bag.

He squawks and stumbles as Kageyama suddenly pulls him around the corner of the school building.

“Uh,” says Kageyama, cutting off Hinata’s inquisitive chirps, “you might want to hold off on that.”

“What? Why?”

They peek around the corner to see Yamaguchi and Tsukishima in the grass beneath the biggest tree on school grounds, half-hidden by its generous shade. Yamaguchi is in Tsukishima’s lap—Hinata can’t even _begin_ to imagine how either one of them feels about that—and their faces are close, real close, and so gentle like the spring breeze that pushes Hinata’s wild hair into his face.

They start to kiss.

He gasps and squeezes Kageyama’s shoulder in excitement, the black material of his jacket bunching between Hinata’s clenched fingers.

“They’re totally making out,” whispers Kageyama.

Hinata nods and nods and nods and pulls Kageyama back around the corner. His heart’s so full that he could _yell._ Even if he did, it would be swallowed by the kiss Kageyama plants on him for no reason, tan fingers wound gently in Hinata’s hair. He hums his surprise against Kageyama’s lips. Hinata’s unrelenting grin makes it hard to kiss properly but neither of them care, panting hard when they pull back with a nice, soft _smack_.

“What’s that for?” Hinata asks, feeling the heat of his blush.

“It wasn’t fair that they're kissing and we weren’t,” says Kageyama.

Hinata coughs a laugh and cups Kageyama’s face in his hands. Kageyama’s eyes boast the clearest blue, made brighter by the deep, dark black of his hair. _Make him blush_ , Hinata directs himself, _he looks best with a blush_. All it takes is a stroke of his thumb from Kageyama’s bottom lip to the tip of his chin and Kageyama’s tan face burns pink, then red. Hinata breathes and gazes from azure blue to pitch-black to baby pink to Hinata's very favorite scarlet, every color he knows and cherishes and admires and _loves_ , really loves, right down to the pearly white of Kageyama’s teeth.

Heart aflutter, he drops his arms to his sides. He and Kageyama peek once more around the corner.

“Let’s go the other way around. Wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Right behind you,” says Hinata.

Kageyama turns over his shoulder and smirks. “Aren’t you always?”

“No,” Hinata scoffs. “I’m always one step _ahead_ of you.”

“You wish.”

“ _You_ wish,” he retorts.

Kageyama pivots. He waits until Hinata catches up and slings his arm around his shoulder to pull him close. He buzzes a thoughtful hum into Hinata’s hair and Hinata absolutely melts, tucked into Kageyama’s side like a just-right puzzle piece.

“No. You’re fine right here.”

“By your side?” Hinata asks.

“Yeah,” says Kageyama. “By my side.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [stay, stay, stay 8tracks playlist](http://8tracks.com/deanpendragon/stay-stay-stay)
> 
> <3


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